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by SleepIsforTheWeak69



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Jealousy, Long, M/M, Opposites Attract, Rival Relationship, Slow Burn, Tumultuous Relationship, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-05-24 10:28:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 43,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14952926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepIsforTheWeak69/pseuds/SleepIsforTheWeak69
Summary: PoE2, through the eyes of, and told in the tone of, Aloth Corfiser.Reads like a sequel because it's about... the... sequel. (Oh, so that's why.)





	1. Reacquaint

_v. to familiarize anew_

* * *

 

“S-should we say something?” Semil stammers out, his face all but pressed to the filmy glass to follow the spectacle outside.

Ginra hacks up a glob of phlegm and spits it onto the ground to join her other such creations.

“Brilliant idea, whelp—let's shout and distract the man currently fighting off _two panthers with only a pair of knives_.”

_Stilettos. A pair of stilettos._

Aloth nearly corrects her. Caedrus would flail into hysterics about the many qualities and particularities of both the dagger and the stiletto, and how they differed, and how calling such weapons _knives_ was tantamount to an insult to him.

Besides: anyone with half an ear would know that the stilettos in question were anything but ordinary. Last that Aloth had heard, there was even a tavern ballad about the peculiar but deadly pair that was Caedrus’s Bleak Fang and Vent Pick.

It has been—two hours, perhaps. Stuck in the werradith along with five other people isn't usually something that Aloth grumbles overmuch about, except that Ginra smells as if she does not remember that running water and soap are some of the best inventions known to kith. Let alone that they exist at all.

For distraction, Aloth turns his attention to the fight through the double glass of the werradith. He has seen Caedrus fight more times than he can count, but the sight still manages to capture his attention and imagination. The elf moves at such a blurring speed that he seems to be little more than a vaguely-kith-shaped bolt of color that leaves death and rivers of blood in his wake.

Caedrus enjoys the challenge of battle, Aloth knows. The work of it. Aloth has seen him cut through a room full of Goldpact Paladins with the sort of deadly elegance usually found in the top predators of the wild.

Sometimes he would crack a joke, right in the middle of everything. Once, with his attention absorbed by a particularly quick thug, Aloth had seen him take a blast from a pistol. Blood had splattered the crates behind him and Caedrus had laughed, LAUGHED, like it was all some sort of game. Like, _ha ha, yeah, good job, you got me: I wasn't paying attention_.

Of course, the shooter _had_ ended up dead, and Caedrus had walked away with just that one injury from the entire fight. But still. It was the principle of the matter.

He watches as Caedrus does his familiar routine; egging the beasts on by standing still, putting his hands on his knees and half crouching down to taunt the panthers with _here kitty kitty_ ’s, before dodging them easily as they leapt and swiped at him. This goes on for quite some time, _has_ been going on for quite some time— and Aloth has half a mind to step out of the werradith and assist him, if only to get the fight over with.

“I cannot tell if he is that confident, or that stupid,” Ginra huffs. Despite herself, she sounds impressed. “Fighting in plain clothes.”

“Probably both,” Aloth says lightly. Outside, a rain has started up. Caedrus _is_ in plain clothes. Cotton and silk and soft leather—a rich man’s garments—not suited to provide even a scrap of protection. On his head is a triangular hat in the ship-captain style that they are so fond of in the Archipelago. One of his eyes is covered by a black eyepatch— and an involuntary shiver goes down Aloth’s back at the prospect that somebody somewhere had gotten lucky and took an eye from him.

The fight ends before the thought takes root and makes him worry. Aloth focuses back onto it just in time to see— _Eder_ , of all people, cut the second panther down.

He steps over the cooling body and down the long ramp to join the Watcher. A young woman is trailing closely on his heels, a bit too far away for any noticeable features to make themselves known.

“That was incredible!” Semil informs them all, right into Aloth’s ear.

Indeed, apparently the rest of the animancers have never seen a battle such as this, and are cheering it on enthusiastically—also right into Aloth's ear.

He doesn't know if he wants to smile or frown at their awe. Of course this would seem like the most incredible fight to them: he doesn't think any of them have seen a fight in their lives, ever. Much less the things that Aloth has seen, and the fights he's been a part of.

Sometimes, he wishes he could be like them.

Silently, Aloth watches as Caedrus, Eder and the woman make short work of rooting through the various supplies and crates littering the camp. At least half has been torn into by the animals, but Caedrus has eyes like a hawk and takes what he wants from the slim pickings on offer.

“Hey, he’s—what the Hel is he—” Kethra begins heatedly, putting a hand onto the locking mechanism to release it. Aloth lays a gentle hand on her forearm to stop her.

“It isn't worth it. Do you really think you'll be able to stop him from taking whatever he wants?”

He wants to add _it's not as if any of the owners will miss their things,_ but he thinks it too grimly knowledgeable and out of character for ‘Engferth’, so he keeps his mouth shut.

Kethra’s color rises in indignation, but she doesn't have a response, and so only wrenches her forearm from Aloth's hand with a grumbled, “Don't touch me.”

Aloth sighs. They all watch as the trio finishes searching the camp and finally strode toward to the werradith. Aloth sees Caedrus give the door a lingering, searching look—no doubt looking for some sort of lock he can pick, but the cage opens only from the inside, so after a few seconds he raises his voice.

“Nice little dome you have here—is it where you kept the panthers, or is it... kinky?”

Aloth has to repress a sigh.

“You out there, are the beasts gone?” Benessa calls out, stepping forward.

Aloth sees Caedrus roll his one good eye. When he speaks again, his words are wryly sarcastic.

“No, I’m just casually standing here while they still roam mere feet from my location. I'm _just that sneaky_.” Another eye roll. “ _Yes_ , I took care of the creatures. You can come out now.”

“Brat’s got a mouth on him,” Ginra grumbles.

 _You have no idea,_  Aloth thinks.

“Well, he doesn't seem overly hostile, if a bit rude,” Aloth says. “And I for one would enjoy finally getting out of this thing.”

“But what if he attacks us, and robs us?” Kethra snaps.

“Oh, quiet, Kethra,” Benessa dismisses. “He’s probably the guard that I sent for.”

And without further ado, she yanks open the locking mechanism on the door and steps out into the rain. Aloth sighs again as the rest follow her out. He's gotten used to _having shelter_ and _being dry_ when it is raining outside. No doubt such things will be in short supply from here on out. Aloth has known since the moment that he saw Caedrus walk down the ramp to their location that destiny has once again meddled to put them together. Aloth has… need of the Watcher. He’ll admit to that much, if nothing else.

(Like how relieved he is to see his old acquaintance mostly in one piece after all the rumors that had painted him dead and his castle destroyed.)

He's the last one to file out of the werradith, taking a position a bit further to the left and back of the group. The closest to him is Semil, who immediately starts celebrating the end of their predicament. The Watcher doesn't notice Aloth; very strange indeed, considering Caedrus is one of the most perceptive and aware people Aloth has ever known.

However, now that the filmy, tinted glass of the werradith is not in his way, Aloth sees just how tired and preoccupied Caedrus seems. Shadows of sleeplessness stand bright against his Glemfallen-white skin, his rich mottled grey hair is thin and oily, the long scruffy sideburns plastered to his face with rain water. His eyes, usually so sharp and focused, are opaque, their luminous adra green is dimmed. A new scar has cleaved one of his thick brows in two—Gods knew where he'd gotten that or what had given it to him. The eyepatch is covering his right eye, so that the açaer tattoo that proclaims him part of the Artists of Eroa stands bright for all to see. Not that any would know what it is.

“—glowing, made of adra—maybe you've seen him?” Caedrus is saying when Aloth tunes back in. The words are feather-light and casual, but the glowing rage that twitches one of the Watcher’s brows rhythmically speaks of another feeling.

Aloth does not think he has ever seen him so enraged—or trying so desperately to hide it.

“I told you the governor does not care about us!” Ginra snaps, and Aloth has only time to think, here we go again, before the woman starts her usual rant. “This is all about profit, for him and the rest of the Vailian--"

“Calloste!” Benessa snaps, the higher register of her voice cutting through Ginra’s lower one easily. The old woman falls silent, slightly shocked. Aloth does not blame her: in the weeks he has been here he has come to understand Ginra and Benessa to be something akin to a mother and daughter. Never mind that they are utter opposites in any category or opinion that you please.

“So,” Caedrus drones on, “care to explain what exactly you all were doing before I came? I'm still holding hope for kinkyness.” He inspects them all, very thoroughly, green eyes flashing with familiar mirth. “Everyone knows the scholarly types are the dirtiest in bed.”

He waits for an answer, but they don't give him one. Aloth is as surprised as he is thankful that none of them rise up to take the bait. Caedrus adores watching people squirm, the wretch, and he can derail a conversation with his antics as quickly as he can kill a man in battle.

He tuts. “No? Nothing? Fine. I suppose you were hiding, then? From the giant that passed through here? On account of the massive footstep ten feet behind me.” He quirks a brow at all of them and throws a thumb over his shoulder.

Benessa nods to his assessment and steps forward a little, unusually hesitant. “We were taking measurements of the luminous adra when something strange began happening.”

“It was fascinating!” Semil blurts out. “The pillar started to dim. The ground shook, and our instruments showed unusual variations—”

“And that's when those of us with a grain of sense got in the cage,” Ginra grumbles, shooting him a glare. Aloth winces, remembering the old woman practically dragging Semil away from the instruments.

“And the cage?” Caedrus asks.

“It is called a werradith. Something we made to protect ourselves from surges in the luminous adra.” She glances to the side, folding her arms as if to hug herself. “The surges have not been a problem, but today I am grateful for unnecessary precautions.”

“Right.” Caedrus looks at the werradith for a long, lingering moment with furrowed brows. Aloth can practically see him weighing his curiosity against his dislike of science-talk. He puts his hands on his hips, pursing his lips. His eyes still on the cage, he prompts, “Then what?”

“The colossus, of course. It passed through here, toward the pillar.” Benessa hesitates, and when she resumes speaking, her voice is wavering. “T-then the pillar went dark. And all of our colleagues outside the cage froze, like they turned to ash.”

Aloth nearly steps forward, twitches as he does to comfort her. It is strange: he has painstakingly decided to make Engferth a gentle, understanding soul—far removed from… whatever _Aloth_ is, nowadays. The animancers have responded in kind to him, and he has formed friendships the likes of which he has not had since the ragtag group that trailed after the Watcher all those years ago. But the more he has been in the company of the animancers, the more he has come to doubt his own personality, his own mission to destroy the Leaden Key. All of his experiences have shaped him into an anomaly among kith; he does not know how to be normal anymore. He has to lie about every facet of himself in order to simply fit in.

“Most of the ruins are that way, through the door next to the ramp.” Benessa points the entrance out. “And if you are going down there, you should take Engferth with you.”

Aloth shifts where he stands, all attention suddenly on him in the wake of his troubled thoughts, which have left him off balance. He steps forward to stand even with the group and sees Eder’s eyes go comically wide.

“Hey, he looks just like—”

Aloth shoots him the most poisonous glare in his arsenal—and Eder, knowledgeable as he is about such a glare and its meaning, dutifully shuts up.

A shiver rolls up Aloth's spine, and he knows that Caedrus is looking at him. Aloth swallows and meets his eyes.

The quality of Caedrus’s gaze is always one of consideration. His eyes are vivid, but not just in color; in intensity. The way he looked at things, at _people_ , as if he saw something no one else could see. Something you that couldn't see yourself, _about_ yourself.

It managed to be flattering, jolting and just a bit off-putting all at once.

Aloth nods at him, just plain enough that it passes for the greeting from a stranger to a stranger. He knows that Caedrus sees it for what it really is, though.

The Watcher's brows furrow, but Aloth taps a finger to his lips.

“—spells! At first, he even cast fire to chase away the panthers.” Semil is saying enthusiastically, and Aloth flushes, wincing, because—

“Until the flames nearly caught one of the tents,” Benessa says teasingly, giving him a sidelong glance that speeds up the blood in his veins.

He shakes the affliction off. This crush is getting ridiculous. And anyway, he had pulled the spell at the last minute, thinking it prudent for Engferth not to look deadly or overly experienced in magic. Aloth is, after all, something of a spy here. He looks away and catches Caedrus's glance at him.

“Yeah, you're making a _really_ great case for Engferth here.”

“Well, outside of this cage, his skills would be a boon,” Benessa says, but Aloth catches the faint humor in her voice. “I don't expect the ruins will be safe. Many of our colleagues were left behind, and I'm sure it has attracted more…” she glances at the cold corpse of the panther behind Caedrus, near the footprint. “...wildlife. It would be prudent to take help. As long as Engferth is willing, of course.” She adds, looking at him.

“I would be happy to assist,” he says, the words sounding awkward to his own ears. Caedrus is looking at him with an air of mischievous consideration, head tilted to the side as if wondering how far he could, or should, take whatever teasing he will undoubtedly start inflicting any second now.

“What else can you tell me about ‘Engferth’?” There is just the slightest little hitching pause before he says Engferth, and Aloth knows that he is mentally putting the name into quotation marks.

“I don't think that's really—”

“He has only been with us for a few weeks,” Benessa barrels ahead. “He is inexperienced, but he came with a glowing recommendation from an academy in Selona.”

“That is surely a generous oversta—” Aloth begins, slightly worried. Perhaps he had made himself stand out by means of his qualifications and, as she has said, the recommendation. As far as he can tell, the Vailians are just hiring anyone who knocks on their door and says they are an animancer.

“A glowing recommendation, you say?” Caedrus asks lightly.

“‘A pupil of unnatural talent’, is the phrase I recall. It seems he was loved and regarded by almost all of his instructors. Though misunderstood, I gathered, by his fellow students.”

Aloth hears his teeth creak from the force that he is pressing them together.

“I cannot imagine why,” Ginra chimes in with an eye roll, and Aloth gives serious thought to sneakily setting her robes on fire.

“Surely this helpful stranger has more important things to worry about,” he forces out, giving Caedrus a withering glare.

“Hey now, it's no fault of the Watcher's if he wants to know a little about the one he travels with,” the new woman in Caedrus's group says, slightly defensively. Aloth focuses on her for a moment, having quite forgotten that she existed.

She’s young, wrapped in traveling robes of dark and light green. She holds a curious lantern in her hand, and a sickle is strapped through her belt, bare-bladed. She wears a hood, from under which spills waves of beautiful dark hair and a bright, curious face that watches the proceedings with an interested smile.

“Yeah,” Caedrus agrees with the girl, mock-logically. “How do I know he won't catch my tent on fire and steal my belongings while I sleep?” He smiles wider at the suggestion that Aloth tries to convey with his gaze—the one to _go eat a colony of dung beetles_.

“Please,” Ginra snorts. “The kid's as clean-cut as they come. And his talent isn't exactly something to get weak-kneed about, don't listen to those two.” She jerks her chin towards Benessa and Semil.

Aloth almost shows her just _how_ weak-kneed his talent can make her, but Caedrus steps forward and motions through the air as if to slice the previous conversation in half. 

“I've heard enough, then. I _suppose_ you can come along.” He says it in a way that indicates he's doing it for ‘Engferth’ and not because he needs the help at all. “Try to keep up, yeah?”

“Good. Then, perhaps we should be off?” Aloth suggests through his teeth, bad-temperedly enough that several of the animancers give him looks of surprise. It's not what Engferth would have said, perhaps, but Aloth is too weary and too uncomfortable in the falling rain to keep up the act.

“Be careful, aimico.” Benessa steps up to him and gives his hands a squeeze. Aloth is vaguely aware of Caedrus looking on in strangely stony interest, but he gives it no mind, looking briefly into Benessa’s dark eyes.

He wants to linger in them, linger in the throes of attraction—one of the only ones he's ever experienced. Or perhaps say… something. Something that speaks of his interest in her.

He says, “I shall try.”

He steps away from the group of friends that he has made, and back into the strange, motley gathering that the Watcher always seems to attract. Caedrus doesn't spare him a glance as he leads them into the arena.

Inside it is cool but dry. Aloth has grown used to the sight of it over the weeks, but Caedrus halts just inside the door and casts one of his all-encompassing, all-appreciating glances at the room.

“So,” Caedrus says, leading them down the stairs. “You’ve made some new friends. _Animancers_ , no less.” He gives him a sidelong look that Aloth resolutely ignores.

“I have. And I shall miss their company, though this only confirms that animancy is a hazardous pursuit at best.”

“Were you _unsure_ of that, or something?” Caedrus asks, sharply.

“Perhaps,” Aloth admits. “You know I am not one to cast aside any science or knowledge as completely and utterly harmful.”

“Yes, yes, ‘it all depends on the people that use it’.” His words are quick and mocking as always. Aloth wonders if this will always be a point of contention between them. It is not his fault—or, indeed, the fault of animancers at large—that Rymrgand manipulated the pale elves in the way that he had, or the things that Azo did to his patients. A million little examples, and few pretty large ones, have warped Caedrus into denouncing animancy in general with all the fervent superstition of his race.

Since speaking to Caedrus about it has never lead Aloth anywhere, he falls silent.

“I feel as if I am missing something here,” the girl begins hesitantly, looking between them.

“This is a friend of mine from a few years ago,” Caedrus explains plainly, tiredly. “His name is Aloth, not ‘Engferth’ as you were led to believe. Aloth, this is Xoti.” He leaves it at that, and Aloth frowns at him in worry. The Watcher is not himself. Caedrus Oíneayt didn't do introductions as simple as that.

Caedrus leads them through the hall which connects the entrance to what had probably at one time been a beast pen. Xoti’s lantern casts light on the petrified, cowering statues that flank the hallway's ending. Aloth closes his eyes as a wave of nausea hits him unexpectedly.

“Poor fools. They were unprepared for this,” he mutters. He can hear his own voice weaver, and seconds later he feels a hand squeeze his shoulder from behind. Eder, he thinks, and sucks in a breath to steady himself.

“Did you know them?” Caedrus asks him gently, studying one of the statues. Aloth can’t even recognize the face when he looks at it, and shakes his head.

“Not as well as I knew Benessa’s group, but yes, we were all… familiar. There was only about fifty of us here.”

“I’m sorry,” Caedrus says simply, and turns away to lead them deeper into the arena. The pathways fork up ahead, and Caedrus says, “Which way to the pillar?”

Wordlessly, Aloth points to the right, to the skinnier of the two hallways. “That way.”

They walk the length of it, leading into a large circular room, after which a will-o-wisp and a sporeling attack them.

“Over there, into the tunnels,” Aloth says afterwards, a bit out of breath from the fight. It has been a month at least since he has fought seriously, and living the life of a scholar has apparently softened him up. Caedrus leads them ahead into the tunnel wordlessly—and midway through they encounter another will-o-wisp which Caedrus swipes and kills before any of them have time to reach for their weapons.

“On your right, up that ramp there.”

They take the ramp up and Aloth almost runs into Caedrus’s back when the Watcher stops to gaze upon the eckle machine before him. Sparks erratically fly from the ends of loose wires, flashing in the semi-darkness, and one of the holding tubes has been shattered, spilling the luminous essence in a lazy river at the machine’s base.

“I’m not even going to ask,” Caedrus mutters, and walks to the left without waiting for Aloth instructions— which were to go to the right. Nevertheless, he follows the Watcher into the main office, watching impatiently as Caedrus satisfies his inherent curiosity by rooting through the desks and shelves, and also tries to ignore the statues in the room, including one that is on the ground in a fetal position.

“Your Orderisi doesn’t seem to be a very kind fellow,” Caedrus comments, reading a tattered journal that he has commandeered from somewhere. “Also, constructs?” he asks Aloth with a raised brow that clearly speaks of his disapproval.

Aloth sighs. “Yes, a couple. Only made a few weeks ago. To deter the wildlife.”

“Right. Because I can think no better purpose for two souls than to be stuffed into metal bodies and act as _wildlife deterrents_.”

“I suppose you’ll want to put them down, then?” Aloth asks sharply. He has forgotten how enervating it is to be in Caedrus’s company when he is in one of his bad moods and feels the need to point out his disapproval of every single thing that he and Aloth disagree upon.

“Of course. And Xoti will harvest their souls and return them _to the Wheel,_  where they _belong_.”

Aloth doesn’t deem that a response, and they exit the study and cross to the other side of the eckle machine. Copper tubes and wires run the length of the hall, glinting in the light from Xoti’s lantern like gold.

The pillar looms ahead, primal and majestic and dim, and at it’s base—

“That’s Oderisi,” Aloth breaths in horror.  The statue is tilted back, as if falling, flinching back from the pillar, with one hand still on it. The other clutches his notes in a death grip.

Caedrus doesn’t say anything to reassure him this time, merely striding to the statue and yanking the notes free. The hand that holds them disintegrates into dust. Caedrus stoops to pick up the ones on the ground and afterwards hands the neat bundle to Eder wordlessly. Aloth narrows his gaze at the quick callous actions, until he sees the fine sheen of sweat on the Watcher’s top lip.

“Are you… alright?” Aloth asks, stepping towards him.

“Fine, I’m fine. I just…” He trails off, turning towards the pillar and gazing upon it as if he had a personal vendetta against it. “It’s... not right,” he mutters, and places his hand onto the uneven surface of it.

Immediately, his body stills, as if in a trance, and a part of Aloth is fearful for a split second that what has happened to Orderisi will happen to Caedrus, but when a few seconds go by and it doesn’t, Aloth sighs longsufferingly. Caedrus is always touching things he’s not supposed to—and receiving visions and the such for his troubles. That is probably all that this is.

Eder, on the other hand, does not seem as assured. He places his hand on Caedrus’s back and shakes it gently, then, receiving no response, shakes it a tad harder.

“Gods, not again,” he mutters.

“It’ll be alright, Eder,” Aloth reassures him.

“Yeah, say that to me when you’ve spent two weeks sitting by his corps’ bedside,” Eder snaps at him and Aloth recoils, surprised by both the revelation and the tone.

“He was—”

He doesn’t get to finish, for in that moment the pillar lights up suddenly, color and warmth flooding the adra as though a dam had broken. Seconds later, Caedrus comes back into his body with a gasp and flinches away from pillar. Eder steadies him, keeping his hand on the Watcher’s shoulder.

“You alright? C’mon, we just got you back,” he says teasingly while Caedrus blinks as if warding away sparks or visions.

“I-I’m fine.”

“Yeah, I heard you say that before. Had something to do with a two-thousand-year-old lunatic talking to you in your dreams.”

Through his still-gasping breathing, Caedrus lets out a laugh. “You don’t say? That _does_ sound familiar.”

“I still got the castle in the end, though,” Eder says to him.

“I’ve seen you commune with souls of the dead, but this looked altogether different,” Aloth says. Indeed, when Caedrus would read the past lives of souls, he retained malleability, his eyes moving behind his eyelids as if he was asleep and gazing upon a dream—it is a peaceful embrace of a memory, not a violent clutching of a vision. “What happened?”

“I… saw Eothas. And he saw me.” Caedrus blinks, brows furrowing at some unpleasant thought.

“You— well, he— really?! I knew it!” Xoti explodes before Aloth can comment. “I mean, that's great, Watcher. Ain’t it? What did Gaun say? I he going to meet us? What do we do next? He charged you with a divine calling, didn’t he? Just like he’s done for me.”

Aloth looks at her in a bit of a shock, having not heard her speak so much in their acquaintance.

Caedrus looks at her briefly, duly, as if not really seeing her. Then he shakes his head. “I saw more luminous adra in his path. But he told me not to follow, that ‘something beautiful is coming’.”

“Wonder if he said the same thing to people in Readceras twenty years ago,” Eder mutters darkly, crossing his arms. Aloth sees Xoti shoot him a strange glance.

“I wonder what he’s after, or why he’s been giving me these dreams,” Xoti says, her earlier enthusiasm abated. “The things I’ve seen… they leave a mark on your soul.” Her eyes go distant and haunted briefly, before she shakes herself of it. “I may not know what Gaun’s got planned for me. But clearly he wanted me to meet you.”

She meets Caedrus’s eyes in a look that Aloth can’t quite read, but one that makes the Watcher squirm and look away quickly.

“Fine, yes, all well and good, that,” he says quickly. “Lets just go and take care of the constructs so that I can get my reward and get off this island.”


	2. Request

_n. the act of asking for something to be given or done; solicitation or petition_

* * *

 

“Thank you again for maintaining my story with Benessa and the others.” Aloth begins. They are inside of Caedrus’s modest cabin, the ship freed from the rocks and the crew busy with the reparation to the hull, for now. As soon as they had stepped foot onto the deck, the Watcher had given Aloth a sidelong look and requested his presence in the Captain’s cabin within the half-hour.

“You hadn’t thanked me the first time,” Caedrus mentions blandly, but humor sparks his eye briefly. He has changed out of his damp clothes and into more modest ones—as modest as the Lord of Caed Nua could get, of course. The clothes are still very high quality, but the colors are not as bright and the outfits themselves are not as elaborate. He has set up a small meal for himself; a taar loaf stuffed with vegetables and ground beef, some beans on the side, and a bowl of fresh fruit. Aloth feels very much the outsider, standing before him while he sits and eats and peers up at Aloth expectantly.

“I did not enjoy deceiving them, but it seemed simpler than the alternative.” He sighs. He feels exhausted, suddenly, regardless having spent the night at the inn in the best accommodations that they offered.

“Are you still thinking of that woman?” Caedrus asks quietly, and Aloth is confused for all of a few seconds before he realizes that Benessa must’ve never given him her name. Then he sighs again because sometimes he wishes Caedrus wasn’t so perceptive, or at least wouldn’t ask about the things that he perceived.

“I realized there could be nothing between us,” he admits. _The minute that I saw you walk down that ramp, come to take me on some other ridiculous journey_. “But it was nice to have a friend, all the same.”

Caedrus is looking at him in a pinched-face, pursed-mouth sort of way, as if Aloth is a particular floor puzzle that has just been presented to him and he’s trying to figure him out.

“What?” Aloth says, irritated.

“You know, I thought that maybe…” his eyes meet Aloth’s in a look that Aloth has never seen before. “...there was something between us?”

Aloth blinks in astonishment. He doesn’t quite remember the last time that he was taken so completely off-guard. Over the years he has fancied himself something of a Caedrus expert— if only because the man wears his feelings on his face so obviously, and only has a total of four settings at best: kind and sympathetic, humorous, enraged, or seductive. This isn’t any of them, Aloth thinks. This is _honesty,_ made casual for all it’s rarity within Caedrus.

Aloth starts to laugh at the absurdity of it after a few seconds of gawking. Because no, there is nothing between them. He and Caedrus get along shakely at best, their views and personalities differing so drastically that sometimes he wonders how the both of them are able to be in the same room without flying to the opposite walls like two polar magnets.

“I almost forgot how much you enjoy a good joke. Even at my expense,” Aloth says. He wonders if Caedrus can read the double meaning behind the words—both that Caedrus is joking by saying such a thing, and that such a thing is a _joke_.

Caedrus stares at him for a few seconds before laughing fully with his chest. “Yep, you got me. Just kidding with you!” His eyes are furious though—so he has gotten the meaning, after all.

Aloth gives him a weak chuckle. “Indeed. Forgive me, but it’s been a rather long day.”

Caedrus stands to clear his dining wear, handing the plates to a passing sailor and telling them to get it to the galley before once again closing the door. When he turns to Aloth, his emotions are under control again.

“So what exactly were you doing out there?” He asks, striding toward his desk and sitting down.

Aloth rubs his ear. “Well, after we parted, I set out to destroy the Leaden Key.” He sighs, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples. “It’s controlled us for too long. I wanted to free kith from it.” He opens his eyes to see Caedrus watching him closely. “So for five years I’ve been tracking down Leaden Key circles. Searching for the places where they operate in secret, and trying to undo them.”

Caedrus raises a brow at him. “Right. Might as well start off with the ones operating from crystal waters and sandy beaches.” His tone is sarcastic and sharp. Aloth thinks it is a little payback for earlier, so he swallows it well enough. He and Caedrus are always throwing barbs at each other.

He forces out a chuckle, because Caedrus would get more on-the-nose and forceful with his thorny humor if Aloth didn’t. “It does seem idyllic. But the pamphlets fail to mention the wurm nests and sea serpents.” Or the general balmy heat of the islands, or the constant on-and-off showers that strike whenever they so please, he thinks sourly.

He shakes his head. “The task before me has been… more difficult than I anticipated.”

“How so?”

“I don’t think I fully understood the weight of the decisions I would have to make.” He closes his eyes against the onslaught of images that want to entroche. “Or the burden of living with them. It was much easier when I only had to follow someone else’s lead. My father’s. Thaos’.” He opens his eyes and glances into Caedrus’s green ones. “Yours.”

Caedrus snorts and breaks their gaze, looking down at the journal laying open on his desk. “Easy, sure. I lead you right into the prison of the Gods.” There is an uneasy edge to the Watchers’ words, and Aloth is a little surprised the recognize it as guilt.

“What matters is that you got us out again,” he says, gentling his tone. He does have an understanding of the feeling, now, after all. The burden of leadership and, undoubtedly, heroism. A part of him wishes that Caedrus had shown these things when he felt them instead of being, well… Caedrus.

Then he thinks that perhaps he _had_ shown it to the likes of Eder or Sagani or Hiravias—those he was closer to.

“I thought the hard part of undoing his work would be tracking down the Leaden Key’s members and operations. After all we had a hard enough time of it, and the man had been alive for thousands of years—I figured his operations would be well entrenched and nearly invisible.”

“Maybe he had an address book,” Caedrus says wryly. “Too bad you burned his robes.”

Aloth smiles despite himself. The man _is_ funny, even if he’s obnoxious with it more often than not.

A knock sounds on the door before Aloth can continue, and Caedrus calls for whoever it is to enter. One of the sailors, an old tall man with unwashed, stringy white hair peeks his head in.

“Par’don the int’ruption Captain,” he says, and Aloth wrinkles his nose at the stench of soured whisky that teems from the man’s breath and pores. “We’ve finished th’ main repairs on the hull. She’ll hold up well ‘nough to Neketaka.”

“Great,” Caedrus says, a light and enthusiasm coming back into him. “Set sail, then. I’ll be up on the bridge in the next half hour.”

The man ducks back out and closes the door with polite quietness, and Caedrus turns to Aloth again.

“Look, I understand your problems,” he begins. “But you’re doing the right thing, and you shouldn’t forget that.”

Aloth smiles bleakly at him. “Perhaps this would be easier with an example, then.” For something to do, he strides towards the bookshelf full of maps and a growing collection of books both fictional and not. In Caed Nua Caedrus had made a fine library, and had practically overstuffed the bookshelves with all manner of knowledge—and in the years to follow, Aloth had heard ‘Caed Nua’s Library’ to be a viable attraction for all sorts of scholarly types and a wealth of very rare novels indeed.

“I went to a village in Old Vailia. A run-down back water of a place.” He feels the swelling feeling that precedes—“Aye. Right home-like it was,” Iselmyr says fondly. Caedrus grins at him. Or maybe her.

Aloth clears his throat. “Uh, centuries ago the Leaden Key had intervened to end some heretical cult.”

“Doesn’t sound that bad,” Caedrus says.

Aloth rubs his hands over each other and looks  at them. “The details were lost, but what had endured was a practice of ritual bloodletting.” Just speaking of it gives him chills. Caedrus’s face grims. “A gruesome, pointless tradition. At every full moon, the villagers would feed the soul with their blood. No one, young or old, sick or hale, was exempt. I even saw babies—months old _babies_ —be put to the blade.” He was sure their wailing would haunt him for the rest of his days. What kind of parent did that?

He shakes the images off but they stay. They always stay.

“What did you do?” Caedrus asks him quietly. He doesn’t meet Aloth’s eyes.

“The village priest administered the practice. Grim old fellow. Reminded me of Thaos.”

“Wickt eld bonebag, ‘tis what the lad means,” Iselmyr elaborates for him, as though telling a scary story.

“He was a tyrant,” Aloth says grimly. “I was certain that if the villagers were free of his influence, they’d be free from the bloodletting, too. So I arranged for him to have an ‘accident’.”

“Hopefully it was creative,” Caedrus says in approval. Aloth doesn’t know if it’s approval of a creative kill or the death of such a man. He likes to think it’s both.

He smiles a little. “I’m not an Artist like you—”

“Obviously.”

“—But I gave it a respectful try and was pleased with my results. They were none the wiser, but… the villagers were terrified after his death. They were convinced it was an ill omen, and they blamed it—and every other thing that befell them—on their lack of faith.” He swallows, thinking for the uptenth time _how could he be so stupid_? “So they began bloodletting every week, and turning on their neighbors for giving too little. Instead of a handful dying every year, a few perished each week. I’m sure by now half the village is dead.”

“I see,” Caedrus says seriously. He laces his hands on the desk, looking narrowly at Aloth. “Would you like my opinion?”

Aloth nods—Caedrus is the main reason that Aloth had started doing this in the first place.

“How long did you spend there?” Caedrus asks, still peering at him strangely.

“A week at most, I suppose,” Aloth says, a bit confused by the unusual question.

“The entire tale is… horrific, and I applaud you for doing something. But… it reads like the tale of an inexperienced, over-eager Artist.”

Aloth rolls his eyes. “I’m not an assassin, Caedrus; I wasn’t getting paid for this and I don’t want a grade.”

“You asked for my opinion,” Caedrus sing-songs. “No, but seriously. How could you have any hopes of stopping something if you do not understand it? In our training, one of the first things they make us do is think ahead. Think ahead at every possibility that could stem from your actions. They’d make us do it for every single action we did in our normal lives. For weeks, for months, until it was so ingrained in us that I hardly realize myself doing it now. It’s… fun, and stimulating. But when you are looking to make your actions influence kith, it is much more difficult: you must know them, you must know their reactions to things. You must integrate yourself into their society and truly understand them. You may have even found a few like-minded individuals within, and so could have plotted with them to change it from the inside as _well_ as from the outside. Part of the reason that we are paid so well is because Artist can take several _months_ to carry out one assassination. Our assassinations are often political, and so we are trying to change _minds_ , not just spill blood.”

“Then… I simply acted too swiftly?” Aloth asks, hope blooming within him despite himself. He had chosen right in telling Caedrus about this; regardless of initially only wanting an ear from the man.

“You should’ve—”

He stops suddenly as a frantic knock sounds on the cabin door.

“What is it?” he calls.

The door opens and Eder steps inside. He’s in armor again, despite having been in plainclothes when Aloth had last seen him.

“There’s a ship approaching—coming fast straight for us. You guys should probably suit up: could be trouble.”

“Of course. No rest for the wicked. And I suppose I _am_ the wickedest of all.” Caedrus rises and takes his daggers out from under his pillow, putting them bare-bladed through his belt.

* * *

 

It is dark and raining when they step outside. A red-bearded dwarf is at the helm, and Caedrus claps him on the shoulder in companionship.

“What news, Beodul? What’s this about a ship?”

“There, Captain,” he points his finger at an imposing dhow—it’s still some length away from them, but it does seem to be coming upon them fast. It’s sails are a bright, royal purple that stands out against all the whites and tans of the other ships that mill about.

“That flag there is… don’t tell me, I’ve got it, hold on…” Caedrus says, staring at the tiny flag that flutters at the top of its mast. A simple, black and white striped one. “Uh, parley?” Caedrus guesses.

“Aye, Captain. Yer learning mighty quick.”

“Of course I am,” Caedrus preens. “I’m good at _everything_ that I do. Doesn’t seem very talkative by its speed,” he hums, staring at the ship as it gets larger and larger. “Is it a pirate trick? Do pirates fly flags of parley to get close and then attack?”

Beodul laughs. “If’n pirates were as clever as you, they would. No, not that I’ve heard of, Captain.”

“Must be real then.” Caedrus shrugs. “Let them come alongside. Keep the men on the cannons just in case, though.”

The crower relates the order to the ship at large and Caedrus goes down the stairs and to the main deck of the ship. It takes at least two minutes and a half for the dhow to catch up to them and come alongside. A ramp slaps down onto their deck, connecting the two ships, and a large, broad-chested man with deeply tanned skin and neatly trimmed blonde hair walks across it, a hairy, unkempt orlan at his side.

“Ado, Watcher of Caed Nua,” the man speaks in a delightfully rolling, clipped tongue. “On behalf of the Principi sen Patrena, I must request we meet in parley.”

Caedrus crosses his arms over his chest. “You couldn’t have asked before you boarded my ship, uninvited? We were right next to each other; a simple call would have done.”  

The man smiles and a dimple winks on the corner of his mouth. “Eccosi. It has been some time since I have asked another’s permission.” He bows, more-than politely, and Caedrus puts his hands on his hips in a more open stance—and also one able to reach his daggers faster, Aloth knows.

“I have heard some marvelous tales regarding your ventures in the Dyrwood,” the man continues.

“All true, naturally,” Caedrus says silkily.

“Indeed. In fact, you are the first dragonslayer I have ever met—outside of a grave.”

Caedrus chuckles. “The victory was hard won.” He sounds flattered and arrogant at the same time.

There is a little teasing pause, and Aloth thinks, though he cannot see it very well through the dark, that the man is looking at Caedrus through his lashes. “Some fools would seek to make a fortune, pilfering from one such as you.”

“I take it you are no such fool?” Caedrus asks him lightly. “I don’t have much—on account of my home being destroyed by an awakened God a few weeks ago. Maybe you’d heard of him?”

“Indeed I have.” The man’s tone become sobering. “And your assessment is correct. I do not think myself so mighty at this age as to be able to take on one such as you. In fact, I would have been very hard pressed to do it even in my prime.” He pauses and raises an eyebrow but Caedrus says nothing. “However, I do believe you have met one such fool—Captain Benweth, of the _Drake_.”

Caedrus doesn’t respond for a few seconds. “And your furry little companion happens to be…?” he finally says, feather-light. The question is a bit off topic and slightly from left field, and Aloth sees the Captain raise one of his thin, groomed eyebrows at him before conceding.

“Ac. Allow me to introduce one of my more special acquisitions. A diamond in the rough, if you will. Serafen is a magnificent shiphunter.” The captain throws him a sidelong look that doesn't paint his feelings about the orlan as very warm. “In fact, he is how we tracked you.”

“I see.” The way Caedrus says the words is considering and not altogether pleasant. “My memories are my own, fur-face. If you’d like to hear about them sometime, buy me a drink first.”

The orlan’s mouth falls open and he takes a step in retreat. The Captain rounds on him.

“Voc se no vulpinet merla!” he spits, rage covering the glossiness so quickly that Aloth’s hand instinctively tightens on his grimoire. “Careful, shiphunter. Mind that you do not confuse a useful skill set with an unexpendable one.”

The orlan seems to pay the threat no mind, looking at Caedrus as if he is equally the most fascinating, confusing, and dangerous creature that he has ever seen. It’s probably not too far from the truth.

“My apologies. Rest assured, it will not happen again.”

“Apologies Captain,” the orlan begins, in a voice like what a smoker might have after fifty years of her habit. “Didn’t mean it, really. Were up all night, you know, searching out our friend here.” He gestures to Caedrus.

“Believe you me, if I didn’t want to be found, you _wouldn’t_ have found me,” Caedrus says, darkly and rimmed with frost. Whatever memories the orlan brought to the forefront must have not been pleasant. Then again, Caedrus has always been wary around ciphers. “Speak quickly, Captain,” he says in the same tone. “You’re _promptly_ outstaying your welcome. You say this Captain Benweth is the one who attacked me?”

“Ac. The short-sighted scoundrel has been wreaking havoc in the area for months.” The Captain’s visage darkens. “He is no son of Valia. I do not fault his ancestry, but he disregards too much the grand heritage we Principi represent.” Aloth sees Caedrus cross his arms again. “Benweth is the second most selfish captain within the Principi’s newest generation. He risks all that we value.”

“Or maybe everyone values different things, Captain. And if he’s the second-most selfish, then who, prey tell, is the first?”

The Captain catches his lip between his teeth, eyes narrowing. “Perhaps I have said too much. She is a problem solely of my own. For now.”

“Well if Benweth is one of your own, shouldn’t you take responsibility for his actions?”

“Benweth is no Captain of mine, aimico. It is not beneath _my_ flag that his ship sails.” He clearly catches himself before his words become too sharp. “Yet I do seek to temper his actions when they would harm the Principi altogether.”

“And where might I find ‘Captain Benweth’ if I wanted to, say, teach him a lesson?” Caedrus says ‘Captain Benweth’ in a way that already speaks of his demise.

“Benweth’s _Drake_ took damage during the storm. Eventually, he will need to dock for repairs. And when he does, Serafen can find him for you.” The Captain motions to the orlan, like a merchant showing off a rare trinket. “He is a rather unrefined creature, but his ship-hunting is second to none.”

“Unrefined? Begging your pardon, Captain, but I be the high fucking model of the gentlemen of fortune.” He scoffs and looks away.

Aloth rather wishes they’d get on with it already. The cold rain has soaked him down to the bone—he feels as if he has not been dry a second of his existence since yesterday, and yet Caedrus and everyone involved seems utterly unaffected by it. He's hungry, too, and his stomach is making sounds akin to an adra dragon. Eder keeps throwing him smirks about it.

“—all my furriest bits that he set sail for Deadlight.”

“That would be felicitous indeed,” the Captain hums thoughtfully. “As I believe the traitor Remaro hides there, as well.” A grin quirks his lips. “I quite enjoy killing two men with a single bullet.”

“Wouldn’t’ve even thought of it if you hadn’t brought it up, sir,” the orlan mutters, a touch of sass in the words, but his Captain is too preoccupied to notice it, apparently. Serafen straightens and faces Caedrus. “Now I ain't hardly in any hurry to leave the fine company of the _Gentlemen of Leisure_ , but the Captain is right about me finding your mark. Adding to that, you sail into Fort Deadlight not knowing your innies from your outies, you might very well find the locals cannon-fucking your boat to sodden splinters.”

Aloth purses his mouth at the words. Did _every_ orlan in Eora have to be utterly uncouth? He thinks of Vela, and concedes that perhaps not. Then again, with a father like Caedrus, one could never be too certain.

“Welcome aboard, then. Try to stay out my head in the future, yes?” Caedrus says.

And then the orlan is striding across the deck, saying some such about onions being shit-apples. Aloth sighs longsufferingly.

“He’s not sleeping near my berth, I promise you that much,” he mentions to Caedrus.

“Well if the smell’s too bad _my_ bed is always open, sweetheart,” Caedrus says lightly. He doesn’t sound like he’s joking, the wretch, but Aloth is behind him and cannot tell without a look into his eyes, so he doesn’t deem it a response. He hears Eder choke on something like laughter, or maybe surprise.

“I sail now for Dunnage, my own safe port. I will await you there, should you be successful in... schooling our wayward Captain.”

With another deep bow, the Captain turns with a flip of cape and strides back across to his own ship. The others walk off almost immediately after the brow is raised and the dhow starts moving again, but Caedrus stands in the rain, his hands on his hips. His clothes are soaked through and outlining the fine muscles of his back and arms.

Aloth lingers, staring at him and wondering if he still thinks about whatever it was that the orlan saw in his mind. He wonders what it could've been, to have caused such a cold, violent reaction from someone like Caedrus.

“Are you alright?” he asks softly.

Caedrus scoffs, as if the prospect of him being alright is ridiculous. “Worried about me, sweetie?” he says, not at all flirtatious, but almost snapping the words. Aloth feels his own heckles rise, but a worming thought of guilt wonders if he had truly hurt Caedrus that deeply with his dismissal. He knows Caedrus wasn’t joking, and he suspects Caedrus knows he knows.

“Yes,” he admits.

Caedrus laughs. It sounds forced. “Well, don’t be, unless you’re prepared to do something about it. I know it wasn’t for my good looks or charming company that you left your… friends, back there. You _want_ something from me, right? Just like everyone else.”

“Yes,” Aloth says again.

Caedrus is nodding, slowly, over and over as if his head is on a spring. “Okay,” he says simply. “Then I suppose I’ll let you know for real this time: I want something from _you_ , and you _know_ what it is. I’m not going to seduce you, and I’m not going to persuade you, and I’m not going to beg for it— _Hel_ no. I’m just going to leave it at that, and you see if you can resist me, with that knowledge in your head that I want you, and have wanted you for years.”

He spins on his heels, meeting Aloth’s gaze in a blazing look that is rage and longing intertwined, and strides past him without another word.

* * *

 

When Aloth walks into the mess hall for dinner, he finds Caedrus to his old self again, smiling and joking and making the crew choke on their food and drink in laughter. When he looks at Aloth it is the same casual glance that he gives any of his companions.

So, Aloth thinks, he’s going to ignore it, true to his word.

Relief swells within him, just as suddenly to be replaced with suspicion. It’s obviously Caedrus’s ploy but Aloth doesn’t see how it’s supposed to get him into bed in the slightest, and that makes him worried—which is also probably part of Caedrus’s ploy. The man has a brain like a nest of squirming vipers, and he knew people very well.

“So,” Caedrus announces as soon as Aloth takes his seat at the long table. “I figure myself for a democratic, and the way I see it, we’ve got two choices: go to Deadlight or go to Neketaka. Mind you, the ship _does_ need repairs, but the deckhands have assured me that I can make Deadlight and _then_ Neketaka and probably still be fine. So I’ll leave it up to a vote. Discuss it amongst yourself, or whatever, just give your votes to Eder. _I_ am going to go put my darling daughter into bed.”

Vela immediately starts to protest this, but a well-practiced look from her father shuts her right up and sends her to trail sulkily behind Caedrus up the stairs.

“I say we make fer Neketaka, if it’s all the same to you lot,” Serafen begins, munching on his taar loaf and spraying half-chewed food everywhere. “I’d feel a whole lot more prepared _without_ a hole in our hull that could drown us all as we sleep. Plus, I’m sure the Captain is eager to make some dough. Don’t think he’s got enough in his coffers to even _pay_ us for a trip to Deadlight and then to Neketaka.”

It’s a prudent answer, Aloth thinks, and most of the crew seems to agree with him. What little money Caedrus had received from Governor Clario and whatever other jobs he did while he was in Port Maje was used to buy the food they are all indulging on, and Aloth smiles to remember Caedrus’s pleased look and quiet muttering of “wait till the crew gets a load of this.”, as the merchants were loading the ship up.

Aloth eats leisurely, grateful for the subdued mood of the mess hall and that nobody is singing or spilling grog everywhere. Yet. A ship, he thinks with a shake of his head. Living on a ship and hunting pirates and following a colossal adra statue to Gods knew where. No one could ever accuse Caedrus of being boring.

Or _normal_.

Serafen roots his stubby fingers through his beard to get rid of lingering crumbs and eyes them all with an air of expectancy. “So what kind of Captain is the Watcher, if ya don't mind me askin’?”

“The kind that dies for our sins, so that we don’t have to,” Beodul snorts. “And then rises from the dead and goes chasing after it again like the idiot he is.”

Several of the crew members raise their glasses in agreement. Eder’s smile vanishes, and Aloth feels his own mouth pull down at the corners. He’d forgotten to ask about it, but it seemed to be true by all accounts. Through all of his disagreement with practically everything that made Caedrus Caedrus, Aloth did have a grueling respect, and an even more grueling sympathy, for his trials.

“Don’t listen to them,” Xoti reassures him. “The Watcher has been tasked with a divine purpose. He’s a champion of the Gods—they won’t lead him astray.”

“Doesn’t make him immortal,” Eder says quietly. He looks at Serafen seriously. “You’ll form your own opinion, and he may be a bit frosty towards you for the stunt you pulled, but if you apologize, he’ll forgive you. He’s a good man. Has a way of making you feel like you’re a part of something big; like you’re making history.”

Serafen looks a little unsure. “Don’t know if I signed up for all-a that. Is he really going after that statue? What’s he planning on doing once he reaches him?”

“Probably shout and cuss at him a lot,” Aloth says evenly. “Flourish his stiletto in a menacing way and demand things.”

“Maybe try to bed him,” Eder mentions casually, voice thick with humor. He barks out a laugh when Serafen looks at him. “You never know with Caedrus. It could happen.”

“Welcome to the mental institute,” Aloth says. He’s not exactly joking.

 


	3. Realize

_v.i. to convert property or goods into cash or money._

* * *

 

“Well,” Aloth says, staring at the quickly retreating figures of the harbor master and her goons. “That's _one_ way to make an impression.”

“I have several,” Caedrus says sleekly, preening a little. “That one is just the… newest addition to my grand repertoire.”

“Don’t know what impression you were going for, there, cap,” Serafen says as they begin to walk leisurely along the harbor.

“‘I'm strange and unusual and everyone pay attention to me’, of course,” Caedrus responds, as though it should be obvious. He pauses suddenly before a stack of crates, head swerving around the pier before focusing back onto them. “ _Well_.”

Aloth sighs. “Thieving, again?”

“Well it's not _my_ fault they left these crates here _unattended_ . Besides,” he reasons, tugging lightly at the tops of the crates to see if any would budge. “I’m no longer in a position of wealth and prosperity; _I_ can't buy everything the ship needs.” He pauses and glances at Aloth over his shoulder as if to encourage him to voice his arguments and complaints. Frustratingly, Aloth can think of none besides _it’s wrong_ —and he knows that Caedrus would laugh in his face for that one.

His eyes flash and triumph, and Caedrus nods once, very slowly. “See? Now come and magic these nails away for me, Aloth darling.”

Aloth does, tugging the nails out neatly with a bit of gravitational force, then closing them into his fist and stepping back again to keep watch.

“You know,” Caedrus muses, rooting around in the crate. “I'm glad Xoti isn't here—I doubt she'd look kindly on the thievery.”

“She seemed fine with it when you did it at the digsite,” Aloth says.

Eder chuckles. “She was a bit… distracted. Ain't that right, Caedrus?”

“All I did was rub some Gods damned ash from her face,” Caedrus complains. “Now she thinks we're a thing, or something. Every time I come around it’s all ‘hi Watcher’.” He breathes the last words in a husky tone, doing a near spot-on impression of Xoti’s accent and voice.

Eder laughs and slaps him on the back, nearly toppling the Watcher into the crate.

“Better you than me, that's for sure.”

“Well I _am_ much better looking than you.”

“Uh huh. Keep dreaming, Lord Albino Skinnyass.”

“That's Lord Exotic and _Rare_ , thank you.” He straightens up with two burlap sacks of vegetables in his hands, which he hands to Aloth without a word. Aloth sighs and concentrates, vanishing the two bags into his own pocket dimension. “You meadow folk are so _common_. Once you've had one, you've had them all. I, on the other hand, am rarer than godlikes.” He dives head-first into the next crate that Aloth has opened.

This goes on for a few minutes; they score more food and a crate of eight cannonballs along with much-needed repair supplies, all without spending a copper or venturing past the harbor. All the while Caedrus and Eder trade insults in their habitual, brotherly way—until that, of course, leads to a playful tussle right on the pavement, which Aloth breaks up by way of a gentle forcefield that sends the both of them off the pier and into the filthy water.

When they resurface and climb back up, dripping and furious, Aloth amicably suggests that they move on to the nearest tavern.

He’s glad that Caedrus seems to have high spirits today. Something about the man lately has been strained and serious—especially yesterday, when he closed himself off in his cabin and was snapping at everyone that knocked on his door like a wild mutt with an injury. Eder had come to the berth with a bewildered look on his face and asked Aloth to speak to the Watcher (which Aloth resolutely declined on account of not wanting a dagger thrown at his face).

They start to wander in search of the inn. Neketaka is handsome and well-built, a place of clear structure and solidity, built out of the mountain as it is. Aloth can’t place the exact income or social class of the place that they have docked: a place the locals call Queen’s Berth. Cobblestone roads are neat and pleasing to the eye, though puddles gather in shallower places and vegetation pokes through in others. The color palette on the buildings, golden yellows and sky blues and burnt tans, though weathered, look good under the bright sun. It seems like a largely industrial area, though pretty, and so is probably home to whatever they call their working class, Aloth decides. He hopes they stay here a while; he does so miss the city.

The Wild Mare Inn is located deep within Queen’s Berth, past some sort of… fire monument surrounded by a pool of water. Aloth doesn’t know what it stands for or what its purpose is, but guesses that it is a popular gathering place for the homeless or rowdier characters of the night, going by the amount of bottles and trash that lays strewn at its base. Caedrus leads them down some stairs which flank a rather stately building, and no sooner have they stepped on the bottom steps when they hear an exasperated sigh from a very well-dressed woman that stands near the building.

“Merla, how is every shiphunter in Neketaka unavailable?” she snaps. She is talking to a shorter, stoutly woman who is very obviously some sort of mercenary, armed to the teeth as she is. The mercenary shrugs at the woman and brushes past her with a parting nod.

Caedrus pauses, watching the scene intently with one of his head-tilted-to-the-side looks, like he’s a wolf that’s just smelled a kith child.

He stares at the woman for a second and then starts towards her. “Ado, my Lady,” he says, putting a little bit of a Vailian accent into the words—and where had he gotten the time to practice _that_ and make it sound so polished and… shiver-inducing?

The woman looks him up and down like he is an unseemly spot on the wall, and Aloth almost cheers at the sight of someone not being impressed in the slightest by Caedrus, for once.

“I only deal with serious clients. Now shoo,” she says.

Aloth tries his hardest not to choke on the laughter that wants to bubble forth at the look that overtakes Caedrus’s visage at the dismissal. Shock and fury both flash across his face and then start to wrestle with his features. It takes several seconds for him to push both feelings off of his face and regain composure.

He steps forward a step, getting just past the distance that a stranger should keep to remain polite. His spine straightens and he crosses his arms across his chest, so that suddenly he is not lighthearted, flirty Caedrus, but the Roadwarden of Caed Nua and the Watcher that saved Eora from the Hollowborn Crisis.

It is some sort of magic trick of his, Aloth thinks in bewilderment, how he can call forth so easily the majesty and nobility that his station affords—Aloth had seen it earlier, in shades, when speaking with that Captain, and now here it was again.

“I _am_ a serious client,” Caedrus says, devoid of flirtation or Vailian accent. Aloth thinks that he looks more dangerous like this, unarmed and in his plainclothes, than any mercenary could be when fully armed.

The Vailian remains unimpressed, amazingly. “A serious brute—I can see this from here,” she sniffs. Aloth briefly wonders what Vailians are impressed by in general, they way they strutted around with their chins so skywardly, as if they were all lords onto themselves. “Madiccho, but it is impossible to find skilled work when every competent freelancer wastes their shore leave in the Wild Mare.” She gestures wildly at the building. “When the blood travels south of their brains, the value of a good bounty is forgotten.”

“Well... yes,” Caedrus says, as though it should be obvious. “But if you’re offering out bounties, my blood is still quite northern, feeding my brain and all that.”

“ _You_ ? A nameless face off the streets? Don’t make me _laugh_.”

Caedrus goes impossibly red, suddenly, and his brow starts its rhythmic twitch. The woman doesn’t notice this at all. Aloth wonders if Caedrus will make her death quick or slow, and then suddenly feels a resounding pang of utter sympathy for the Watcher. Having to practically beg for a lousy bounty when once he drank six hundred year old Grynn Wine and dined on imported dragon meat.

And Aloth had been practically celebrating seeing him brought down so low.

The woman tsks, shifting her weight and looking Caedrus up and down. “I do not make a habit of shepherding new talent but… ac, there is a seed of potential, one I’m sure will cost me more than a little to hone.”

Caedrus bows low to her and says nothing in response. Aloth thinks _poor old bitch; if only you knew who you speak to_.

“We will cut your teeth on Biakara, a Huana sailor and would-be patriot who plagues Company ships,” the woman states, apparently taking the role of instructor right away.

Aloth sees Caedrus’s brow furrow deeply, but after a few seconds he nods. “I’ll take the bounty.”

“Biakara sails her voyager Scale of Tangaloa off of Hosongo’s northeastern coast. Bring me her head.” And with that, she waves Caedrus off.

Eder lets out a whooshing breath once they’re away from the woman. “Don’t know how you held back. If it was me—”

“Well it _wasn’t_ ,” Caedrus says sharply. “...you.” He sighs deeply. “If I have to lay down my pride to keep you all fed and payed, then I guess I’ll be some ‘nameless face off the street’.” The way he says the words makes it evident they still leave a soapy taste in his mouth and a wound on his ego.

And yes, Aloth thinks as they enter the Wild Mare, that ego of his _is_ in need of tampering, and it _is_ annoying, but Caedrus doesn’t need to be humiliated into modesty. But neither does Aloth know what would do the trick, so he supposes that he is stuck with an egotistical Caedrus for the time being.

But if he was to be utterly honest with himself, the things that woman had said had enraged Aloth to the point of thinking some very violent things indeed.

They walk up to the bar where a cheerful, broad-shouldered man is tending. He greets them all very cheerfully and asks Caedrus what he’d like.

“What’s the cheapest rooms you’ve got?” Caedrus asks, tearing his gaze away from the stage and the pretty woman currently dancing on it.

“All the private rooms are two hundred coppers, each.”

“ _Two hundred_ —Gods be _fucked_ ,” Caedrus swears. “Is there _nothing_ lower?”

“There’s the backstage storage room,” the barkeep says wryly. “You can have that for free, though you’ll be having a hard time fitting all four of you in there.”

Caedrus scrubs his hands over his face furiously. Eder slings an arm around his shoulders, gently shaking him. “We don’t need rooms, Caedrus, we can just get something to drink and eat and… enjoy the show.”

“Right,” Caedrus says dryly. “And then go back to the ship and sleep in your _wonderfully comfy hammock_?”

“It’s… not that bad,” Eder says weakly, because they’re atrocious.

“Nah, nah, you know what…” Caedrus says furiously, and then suddenly takes off the Gathbin Family Signet from his finger. “How much for this?”

“Caedrus!” Eder says in shock.

The man takes the ring from him, inspecting it from all sides very closely. “This what I think it is?” he asks Caedrus very seriously almost thirty seconds later.

Caedrus nods.

“Then, are you who I think you are?”

“If it’s the Lord of Caed Nua then… no.” He bows his head a little. “Not anymore, I guess. But I was, once.”

“I’ll give you five thousand for it,” the man says after a few seconds. “Feel free to come and buy it back when you’ve found that statue and blasted him to Hel.”

Caedrus takes the offered coin purse that the man holds out for him. “Maybe,” he says. His tone of voice says something different, however.

* * *

 

Aloth takes a breath to steady himself, and knocks.

It's late enough that the main lounge upstairs is deserted of patrons and dancers both. Aloth hears subdued murmurs of conversation from the downstairs area and wonders if the barkeep is still up, maybe showing off his new treasure. Then again, the man didn't seem the type.

Caedrus opens the door before Aloth can think more on it.

They stand there for a second, staring at each other. The Watcher is still fully clothed, though not in the garments that he'd worn hours ago. He smells clean, washed, his hair slicked back very neatly and both the hat and the eyepatch are nowhere to be seen.

Stupidly, of all the things that could capture Aloth’s attention, its the fact that the Watcher still has two very unharmed eyes that stumbles him. “Your eye isn't…?” he blurts.

Caedrus shifts his weight a little from one foot to the other and smiles in a slightly confused way. “Um, no? Did you think it was?”

“Well, _yes_.” Who went around wearing an eyepatch simply for the Hel of it?

“I figured I had to have the look, you know?” Caedrus shrugs. “Anyway, did you, ah, want something?” his tone is strangely subdued, almost nervous, and Aloth realizes for maybe the first time that Caedrus still hasn't asked him in. “I hope you're not here to rant drunkenly about me selling my ring, and then break down and cry and apologize that Eothas destroyed my home and killed me. If you are then don't bother, Eder already took care of it.”

Aloth doesn't know exactly how to feel about Caedrus selling his lordship. There's obviously more at play here, something that throbs beneath the surface of all of Caedrus's smiles. Aloth is surprised to find that he wants to know what it is.

“Is someone in there with you?” he asks instead, and Caedrus smirks slowly, looking at him with penetrating intensity.

“And if there is?” he asks softly. His eyes are blazing, and Aloth looks away from them. Caedrus steps towards him, and Aloth steps back.

Coming here was a mistake, Aloth thinks. He can't quite remember why he'd done it in the first place. Maybe to thank him for the accommodations, even though Caedrus is always doing things like that. Back when he had money to throw around, they always slept in the best accommodations in any inn, and when they were exploring old ruins, Caedrus would often gift them the rare and powerful armors and weapons that they'd find.

Caedrus takes another step towards him, and Aloth takes another step back until they're both out of the room's doorway and in the lounge. Caedrus shuts the door behind himself and leans back against it, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Won't whoever's in there miss your company?”

“He can wait,” Caedrus says softly. “It’s Ymir, in case you’re curious, and we weren't doing anything but talking. About you, actually.”

A flash of annoyance and panic makes Aloth's blood run hot, the way it had when Caedrus and Eder were teasing him about Ymir earlier. Of all the places in the world to meet a former paramour, Aloth thinks exasperatedly.

“Prying into my deepest secrets, were you?” he asks sharply.

Caedrus's smirk dims a little. “I already know your deepest secrets.”

That, of course, is true, so Aloth says nothing in response. They stare at each other for a while, Aloth mostly doing so because Caedrus is so close that Aloth can’t _not_ look at him.

“You know,” Caedrus begins conversationally, “I've always wondered about this.” And before Aloth can dodge out of the way, Caedrus runs his fingers gently along Aloth's hair. His fingers skim down until he taps the thick metal clasp at the bottom. His eyes look back up into Aloth's. “Is it like with the _kidetrs_?”

Aloth gapes at him. “You know about _kidetrs_?”

Caedrus throws him an amused smirk. “I _am_ elven, in case you've forgotten. And unlike you all, we've never gotten rid of ours.”

Aloth swallows, intrigued despite of himself. He’d only read about the _kidetrs_ before; powerful elven mages who would weave runestones and jewelry into their hair to augment their powers into something bordering on God-like.

“I’m sure they’ve changed from how they were, but they do still wear the jewelry—a lot of them wear it in their beards, too. We like bold, bright colors in the south: to better distinguish us from all the snow,” Caedrus is saying casually, laying out more knowledge about The White That Wends and its pale elven population than Aloth has ever been able to find from books. His hand absentmindedly plays with Aloth’s hair as he does so. “I like your hair just like this, though. All nice and brushed and neat. Wonder what you’d look like with it shorter—showing off that neck of yours.”

Aloth recites a chunk of the periodic properties of magic in his head, so that he is calm when he looks up at the Watcher. Thinking it a defense rather than a challenge, he cocks a brow and curves his lips into an amused smile. “Are you trying to seduce me, Watcher?” he says lightly.

Caedrus’s grin is as quick as lightning. “Not in the slightest. But I do have a… curiosity.”  In a smooth, well-practiced move, he cages Aloth in. “Don’t you?”

“As a scholar, I am innately curious.”

Aloth can smell him better now, simple soap with a hint of citrus. More of the periodic properties fly through his head.

“Then how about a little experiment?” Caedrus says. His eyes are on Aloth’s lips, laser-focused on them, and Aloth refuses to flinch, to fumble or stammer and let him see for even a second just how in over his head Aloth is.

“An experiment of what sort?” he asks in what he hopes is a cool and clinical tone. He can’t quite keep up with the state of things anymore; _how_ exactly had he gotten in this position, again? All he’d come to do was thank the man and wish him a good night, for Gods’ sake.

“Well, I’ll do this…” his head starts to tip forward and down by degrees, his hands circling Aloth’s waist loosely.

“What’s your hypothesis?”

“What?” Those eyes flash up into Aloth’s in confusion.

“Your hypothesis,” Aloth repeats, glad to have halted him where he had and taken him off guard. “Your theory as to the outcome of the experiment.”

Caedrus purses his lips, looking at him narrowly. “Theory, huh?” He actually seems to think on it a second, and then the arms around Aloth's waist tighten to bring them chest to chest. “How about… mutual enjoyment? Is that good enough for you?”

“Sure,” Aloth responds evenly, adding on a shrug. He's pleased to see Caedrus's brow furrow in annoyance. “Though I'm doubtful of the success of your outcome.”

Caedrus stares at him for a long while, somewhere between a glare and an examination. Aloth meets his gaze and tries to convey a feeling of patient condescendence, like what a teacher would have for a particularly slow student.

Finally, Caedrus shakes his head with a chuckle and lets go of him, stepping away. “You're a cool one, Corfiser.” He sounds impressed. Aloth tries not to let the relief thats sprinting through him show on his face. He has no idea how he would have felt or what he would have done if Caedrus had kissed him.

“I suppose I should get back to Ymir, maybe take him up on the hints he's been throwing my way all night. Be seeing you, Aloth.” And with a casual parting nod, he turns his back and walks back into his room. Aloth stares at the door for a few seconds afterwards, trying to make up his mind about what to feel about both the situation, Caedrus’s casual dismissal of it, and his revelation that Ymir apparently wants to bed him.

Aloth goes back to his own room and lays down between the sheets, staring up at the ceiling and trying very hard not to think about anything at all, because the alternate of that is to think about—

He doesn’t fall to sleep for a very long time.


	4. Recourse

_n. a person or thing resorted to for help or protection_

* * *

 

A gentle rap on the door wakes him.

“What?” he groans into his pillow, and a second later his door squeaks open.

“Hey, uh, we’re halfway done with breakfast,” Eder’s voice says. “Are you joining us any time soon?”

“Ugh,” Aloth responds eloquently and rolls onto his back.

“Right, well, I guess I’ll relay your message to the Watcher.” He hears the humor in Eder’s voice and then the sound of the door closing. Sighing, he stares up at the ceiling, really wishing to go back to sleep but knowing that it won’t happen. Already the sounds outside his door and below the floor are grating on his nerves. He dearly misses Caed Nua with its feathered mattresses and silk sheets and _quiet_.

He rises, dresses, combs his hair while trying not to remember last night, takes his things, and leaves. Ymir throws him a look and a bright smile from his place talking to a savannah folk. Aloth resolutely ignores him and stomps downstairs.

“Well there he is,” Eder says warmly when Aloth drops down into the chair across from him. The remains of a large breakfast is on the table and Eder is smoking his after-meal pipe. Caedrus is nowhere to be seen. “I fixed your regular,” Eder mentions to him, scooting over a tea cup of—peppermint tea. Touched, Aloth tries on a smile for him before taking the tea cup and sipping it.

“Where’s the Watcher?” he asks.

Eder motions with his pipe. “Around. Schmoozing and looking for more work. He seemed especially chipper this morning."

 _I wonder why_ , Aloth thinks sourly. “He should be looking for a way to get an audience with the queen,” he mutters. Truly, Caedrus was acting as if he had all the time in the world.

“I’ll get around to that,” Caedrus’s voice says from right behind Aloth, and a hand strokes his hair in a ghost-touch before Caedrus comes around Aloth’s chair and drops into his own. “Morning, sunshine.”

Aloth glares his very best glare at him and goes back to drinking his tea. Caedrus smiles fondly at him.

“So what’d you manage to scrounge up, cap?” Serafen asks. He looks more disheveled than before, but also well-fed, leaning back in his chair with a hand on his stomach. The rat.

“Some guy named Oswald apparently ran off with quite a lot of copper—sixty percent of which will be ours if we find him. Picked up another bounty, too. Some crazy animancer that’s using people for experiments. As they do.”

“Don’t forget our weasley friend Benweth.”

“Oh, I’m not forgetting him in the slightest,” Caedrus says. “Though I may need to buy a journal to keep track of the rest of these tasks.”

“The mayor also said to stop by the Vailian Trading Company,” Aloth mentions.

Caedrus snaps his fingers. “Right, he did. See? This is why I keep you around.”

“I’m sure,” Aloth responds dryly, scowling at him. Caedrus grins back.

* * *

 

They exit the Wild Mare onto a sunny day and a cloudless sky. Aloth’s mood improves a little as Caedrus leads them next door to the Vailian Trading Company Headquarters. As they approach the building, Caedrus whistles at its size,  but doesn’t throw out one of his comments.

Raised voices greet them as they near the stairs going up. Caedrus, naturally, pauses at this to listen and observe. A small, bookish man points angrily at a Huana who wears island attire. Aloth thinks the scene especially strange, giving the two’s size difference—then he wonders why it is that everyone just happens to shout their business out in the streets where Caedrus can hear them and offer his blasted assistance.

“We can summon the guards if you want to be difficult, aimico. Kindly leave,” the short man is saying primly.

“But if Luca doesn’t see reason, the Duape will lose their lands. Please, for their sake, I must—”

The man starts walking away, and the Huana’s words trail off after him. The Huana sighs and looks down at the ground, rubbing a frustrated hand over his face.

Caedrus, of course, approaches him. The Huana looks startled for a second before relaxing and flicking an unenthusiastic smile at Caedrus’s direction.

“Please, stranger, I must as for a favor. Do you happen to have business with the trading company?”

“Not yet, at least, but I will. Why?” Caedrus says, as though he doesn’t already have a vague idea.

“My people are the Duape. We signed a contract with the company.” _Great_ , Aloth thinks. _Another sob story_. “We did not understand the terms at the time, and now I wish to… ah, ‘renegotiate’? But the clerk turns me away.”

“Right,” Caedrus says with surprising heat. “Throw a bunch of official, formal terms at the barely educated island folk, and then pull the rug out from under them. Classic corporate business sense.” He crosses his arms in front of his chest and looks back up at the Huana. “Tell me more about the contract.”

“My father, the ranga, took payment from the company. In exchange, they dig for adra.” His voice becomes more confident, as if this part has been rehearsed several times over. “He did not understand the terms of the contract. Apparently, when he dies the outlanders will claim our island for themselves.” Aloth hears Caedrus scoff at this. “And now my father has fallen ill. And the clerk, Luca, stands by the agreement as though it were stamped in his skin.”

“I guess the company didn’t like having you guys wise up and come to challenge them about it. Hince the ‘summoning guards’ part?”

“Ekera. When the clerk learned that I was from the Duape, he became very nervous.”

“Heh. They must all be sitting in there fat and happy, patting themselves on the back about how they’ve swindled you over.”

“I made appeals to anyone who would listen, but my words were like stones dropped to the deepest parts of the ocean. And while I am barred from the office, I can do nothing for my people.”

Caedrus nods. “I’ll meet with this Luca. We’ll come to more agreeable terms, I promise.”

The Huana clasped both of Caedrus’s hands into his own. “Ekera, my thanks! I will remain here by day, until justice is served.”

“I wish you wouldn’t stop to hear the sad story of everyone who has a frown on their face,” Aloth sighs when they enter the Vailian Trading Company. Inside it is cool and quiet, and the marble floors echo their footsteps deeper into the building. Right inside the door is a statue of a scale surrounded by a fountain, no doubt symbolizing fairness and equality. “You act as though Eothas isn’t strutting away with a piece of your soul to who knows where.”

“Your wish will remain unanswered,” Caedrus says cooly. “It’s the duty of the privileged and strong to take care of the poor and weak.”

“A nice sentiment,” Aloth says, and means it. “Even though you’re not exactly privileged and strong right now.”

Eder gives him a bewildered look, but Caedrus merely laughs. “Darling, are you still mad at me from taking you away from your animancers?” He leads them through the western archway after a quick scan of the other doors and archways that lead deeper into the building.

“Not in the slightest,” Aloth says through his teeth.

A large office sits past the archway, and before a long, messy desk stands a tall, thin man, looking at a roll of paper very closely. When Caedrus taps him on the shoulder, he jumps about three feet into the air and spins around with an anxious look on his face.

“Nervous?” Caedrus says lightly. He looks the man up and down. “Luca, I presume? Had some fun last night at the tavern?”

The man gapes at him and slowly closes his long coat over the rest of his clothes. “The servers at the tavern are… clumsy. Most clumsy indeed.”

“Uh huh.” Caedrus raises a brow at him. “I spoke with the Huana outside. You have a claim on his tribe’s land?”

“Ac. A lawful claim, I might add, no matter what the native says to the contrary. He showed up with a forged contract, as if I wouldn’t know the difference between our paperwork and _theirs_.” He sniffs. “He’s lucky I only seized the forgery. The Gullet is too good for his kind.”

“He didn’t mention a forgery,” Caedrus says.

“Sientere. It’s no surprise the little cheat is an accomplished liar. I keep his cheap forgery locked in the chest, there. It’s good for the occasional laugh.”

“I happen to be one of the most accomplished liars I know, _aimico_ ,” Caedrus says, not nicely. He steps closer to the clerk, caging him the same way he had Aloth the night before. Well, not _exactly_ the same way. “I know when someone is lying to me, and he wasn’t. _You_ are. So let's come to an agreement, yes?”

“Your villager friend would do well not to stand between the company and our prize.” Amazingly, the clerk doesn’t sound as intimidated as his face clearly says he is. “So would you, for that matter.”

“Or I could sit on the office stoop and tell everyone how the company conducts itself.”

The man pales even more, and his hands tighten on the rolled up contract. “I see. The… company would appreciate if you kept our affairs quiet. In fact, here,” the man lifts up a coin pouch and hovers it in front of himself. “For you discretion.”

Caedrus stares at the pouch for a few seconds before slowly taking it. “You really think some coin will distract me?” he says lightly. “Or get me to back off?”

He steps even closer to Luca, crowding the other man against the table. Aloth fingers his scepter, taken a little off guard at how intimidating Caedrus is being. Almost as if this was about a personal slight that Luca made against _him_. It’s all well and good, except that they’re in a building full of heavily armed guards that Luca can summon.

“The Huana mentioned you were nervous talking to him. Why?”

Luca’s throat works in a swallow. “The crown has been known to grimace at our client tribe privileges.” He hesitates a little. “We do not allow local trouble to stymie us so that Rauatai can steal an advantage.”

Caedrus says nothing for a second, and Aloth imagines that he is inspecting the clerk closely. “You’re ashamed of this practice, and you don’t want to admit it.”

“The company has every reason to congratulate itself,” the man says with heat. “My personal feelings do not matter.”

“What’s the purpose behind the contract, anyway?”

“Simple,” Luca’s tone takes on a haughty air. “We take on the burden of caring for a tribe in return for their luminous adra.”

Caedrus snorts. “‘Caring’. Right. You do realize that if you keep this up and you’ll drive the Huana into the arms of another company.”

“That is…” Luca begins carefully. “Ac. That is true.” He bites his bottom lip. “But breaking a contract for diplomacy’s sake is simply not _done_.”

“But the company loses nothing by letting go of an island that it never had,” Caedrus points out. “It’s stupid to be so stubborn about one contract at the detriment of your entire operation.”

“Ac,” Luca says, very reluctantly, after almost ten seconds of silence. “Fine. Tell your native friend that I will nullify the contract.”

“Pleasure doing business with you,” Caedrus says, clapping the man on the back so hard that he stumbles forward.

“This will probably cost me my job, you neanderthal,” Luca grumbles.

“Eh,” Caedrus says uncaringly over his shoulder. He’s already turned to walk away. “If it does, look me up at the tavern. I’ve got a ship—maybe we’ll work something out.”

* * *

 

“You know,” Caedrus begins, looking at the back of the retreating woman who had approached them right after they finished speaking with the Huana. “I think I like this place. Plenty of work to do and get paid for. Plenty of wrongs to right—”

“All it’s missing is some abandoned castle for you to stumble on, right?” Eder teases.

“Yeah.” Caedrus laughs. They begin to wander away from the Company Headquarters. “Though I suppose a ship will have to do for now. Even though I wouldn’t mind it being grander than it is. Are ships truly so expensive that _that’s_ all that the Steward could buy with all my resources?” He waved vaguely towards the docks. “I mean, I killed a several-thousand-year-old dragon and took its several-thousand-year-old hoard. We spent like three days carting all that treasure into my vault.”

“W-well,” Eder begins. “There was a lot of looting right after your castle fell. It was at least four days before I arrived and chased them all off. And the Steward is just a soul inside a statue, she couldn’t stop it.”

“Ah,” Caedrus says, and then says nothing more. Aloth cannot tell what his feelings are about the subject.

“I’m sorry,” Eder says, squeezing Caedrus’s shoulder once.

They walk up the same stairs as yesterday, and go around the same monument. Kids chase each other around it in a game of tag, and one of them nearly runs head-first into Caedrus, looking over his shoulder at his pursuer as he is, instead of looking ahead. Caedrus places a hand against the boy’s sweaty head and easily stops him in his tracks.

“Whoa, easy, there.” The boy squints against the sun when he looks up at Caedrus. “Here,” the Watcher says, kneeling down in front of the boy. “Go to the tavern and get you and your friends something to drink. It’s not good for you to run so much in this type of heat.” He gives the boy a handful of copper, and then stands back up and walks past him without waiting for thanks or a reply.

Aloth frowns at the action in confusion, but doesn’t know how to ask about it. There was helping people who asked for it, and then there were things out of the blue, like this. Aloth wonders if he did it to comfort himself. Caedrus has always adored kids.

They come upon a building on the corner, next to the mill. The building’s blue paint is weathered, showing bare brick in several places. There’s no shop name above the door, only the face of a globe that protrudes like an eyeball. On the second floor window lies a curious symbol that mainly features a divider.

“I wonder…” Caedrus voices, and enters the shop. The three of them look at each other and follow after him.

On the inside is the visage of a humble and somewhat untidy shop. Neatly rolled maps are stuffed into every available nook and cranny. Some are layed spread out on tables and pinned up on boards above them. A bed is crammed into a space that had probably at one point served as a broom closet. On top of the bed, a dog cocks his head at them, panting softly. Behind the desk, a young elf is slumped forward in his chair, dead asleep.

Caedrus raps his knuckles on the desk, and the elf springs awake in shock. Seeing that he has customers, he jumps up, bashing his knee on the underside of the desk in his eagerness.

“Hi! Welcome! Wow, its so nice to see a new face!” He reached across the desk to shake Caedrus’s hand enthusiastically. “How might I assist you?”

“You wouldn’t happen to have a spyglass, would you?” Caedrus asks, wandering over to the bookshelf and peering at the spines of the books on display.

“I do, actually,” the elf says. “It was my grandfather’s. Has a built-in compass.” He takes it out of its display case and hands it to Caedrus so carefully that it’s as if he’s afraid it will crumble into dust.

Caedrus looks it over. “How much?”

“Five thousand coppers.”

Caedrus winces, immediately pushing the spyglass back away from him. “Right. Yeah, no.”

“W-well,” the elf starts, not taking the spyglass from him just yet. “I can lower the price if you’re willing to do something for me.”

“I’m listening.”

“I’m putting together an explorer’s account of the Deadfire. Or at least the part of it Queen Onekaza’s tribe has laid claim to.” He staples his fingers together, grinning broadly. “My book will be the first of its kind! The Explorer’s Club will go _mad_ for it.”

“Not to mention you’ll probably go down in history,” Caedrus says. Aloth thinks he’s trying to butter him up.

The elf’s smile dims a bit. “Well… that was the plan, at least. It's a fiercely dangerous enterprise, in point of fact, and no one will agree to map the islands for me. You’d think ship captains would be a bold-hearted bunch. I offered fair recompense.” He fold his arms across his chest, sighing very much like a sulky adolescence.

“Ship captains tend to be more unwashed and flesh-hungry than bold-hearted,” Caedrus says lightly. “And if I can have the spyglass for five hundred, and you put some nice pictures in the book, you’ve got your explorer right here.”

The elf gapes at him for a full two seconds. “Do you meant it? This is—wow! I cannot thank you enough! It’s a lot of ground—uh, _water_ —to cover, and some of these islands are in _very_ dangerous territories,” he babbles. Caedrus nods along, but doesn’t seem to actually be listening, playing with his new toy as he is. “The idea is to explore all the islands that haven’t been charted yet, or even named.”

Caedrus looks up at him. “Do I get to name them? Because I’m about to have _so_ much fun with this.”

Aloth bites back a sigh.

“Yes, it would fall to you.” The elf turns and picks out a short map from the bookshelf behind him. “I think we can start with the islands around Port Maje—there are two islands in the region that no one has taken notice of. Once you’re back, I’ll start filling out my map and adding your findings to the book!”

“If you’re putting the names in a book it… canceles a lot of my _immediate_ island names,” Caedrus mutters, almost to himself. The elf doesn’t seem to hear him.

“See, fur-face?” Caedrus says as soon as they step out of the shop. He flaunts the spyglass in front of Serafen’s face. “Told you I’d get one.”

“That you did, cap,” Serafen says in a tone that one would use when trying to be patient with a child.

Caedrus holds it up to his eye, looking through it. “Sheesh. This thing is _awesome_.” He spins towards the general direction of the docks. “Hey, I can see the ship from here! Also, there’s a... shipwright over there. Damn, I forgot all about fixing the boat.”

“Good thing you didn’t spend all your money on spyglasses and _whores_ , then,” Aloth mutters.

“Let’s—”

“You there—have you seen Larro Bardatto?” a woman calls out to them, coming down the long set of stairs right next to the cartographer's shop. Caedrus pauses, looking her over. She’s in fine clothes of the Vailian style, her short, curly dark hair is immaculate, and she clutches a ledger in both hands.

“I… just pulled into port,” Caedrus admits, tone sliding immediately into flirtatious. He leans one arm against the railing of the stairs. “But whatever you’re seeking, I’ll find.”

Annoyed as she is, she doesn't seem to notice or acknowledge Caedrus’s tone at all. “My brother Larro is past due for a company meeting. My mother wants me to drag the elusive louse back by his ear.” She heaves out a sigh. “But you’d think this district is a maze, with the way he manages to hide.”

For the first time, she seems to actually look at Caedrus. Her brow furrows before her face blooms in something like recognition. “You’re the spirit magnet! I… did not recognize you.” She seems startled and fascinated at the same time.

“Spirits are one of _many things_ I’m a magnet for,” Caedrus says. “Others being trouble, women, men, and women and men with swords.” He counts them off on his fingers.

She furrows her brow, not responding for a second. “Well, if you’d like to get in the good graces of the Vailian Trading Company, we can help each other out.”

“I’m listening.”

“Could I persuade you to look out for Larro? I’d pay generously for your trouble.”

“Where are his usual places?”

“Larro and his miscreant friends carouse at the tavern, the falls above the adra mill, and the southwest bridge.” She points out the general locations. “If you see him, tell Larro to get his good for nothing ass back home.”

“Well we do have this thing about chasing a rogue God to the ends of Eora,” Eder says. “But I guess if this is on the way…”

Caedrus waves him away as they start to walk again. “Oh hush, Eder. You didn’t see how slowly he was walking and how far that pillar was away from him. It’ll be awhile before he gets there.”

“So while he does so we should be chasing bratty kids all over Queen’s Berth? C’mon, man.”

“Fine,” Caedrus snaps, rounding on him suddenly. “Let’s go off with just the amount of food that this measly four thousand coppers can buy us—because we _totally_ know how long it’ll take to catch up to Eothas, or even if there’s going to be any major ports between us and him.”

“That’s not what I—”

“No, no. Let’s go.” He starts to walk towards the docks again. “Let’s go _fix_ the Godsdamned ship and _sail_ to our fucking death.”

A little shocked into silence, they follow him all the way to the docks. They take a right instead of going straight, passing by various merchants plying their wares. On one of the lower docks, a sailor is passed out with a fishing pole in his hand, bottles surrounding him. Gulls cry overhead, circling the fresh fish stall while the breeze carries the smell of the sea—a freshness not found anywhere else in the world.

* * *

**Level Up!**

+1 Stealth, +1 Diplomacy

Persistent Distraction

Shadow Step

 


	5. Recognize

  _v.t. to identify from knowledge of appearance or characteristics._

* * *

 

“Be with you in just a…” the hairy shipwright sighs in exasperation, picking at his thumb with a narrow, concentrated look. “Damn, almost had it.” He glances up briefly at Caedrus. “Hazard of the work, really.”

Caedrus says nothing, merely crossing his arms in front of his chest. Finally, done with whatever had been preoccupying him, the shipwright looks up at Caedrus.

“Yes?”

“I require your services, to fix a hole in the hull of my ship.” His voice bored, Caedrus waves to the general area of the docks, as if he truly couldn't care less.

Aloth scowls at the back of his head.

“Came in on the sloop?” the dwarf asks, putting his hands on his hips. “Sure, I can hammer your ship together if you’re apt to _pay_ me for it.”

“And what would you do if I _didn’t_?” Caedrus asks softly. The dwarf gapes at him and doesn’t answer. Caedrus shakes his head after a second. “Forget it. Yeah, sure, I’ve got coin. How much will it be? And how long will it take?”

The dwarf shuffles, uneasy. “I’d have to look at the size of the hole—as for payment… well… a certain client of mine has not paid for her commissioned firepower. I’m having trouble making ends meet as it is and—”

“So it’ll be expensive,” Caedrus finishes for him, flatly. “Big fucking surprise.”

The dwarf gapes at him again, and this time Aloth gives in to the urge, and whacks the assassin on the shoulder lightly. The glare he receives in reply shocks him with its intensity. For a second, an uncanny murderous look comes into Caedrus’s eyes, then he looks back at the dwarf.

“Fine, fine. So this client of yours: where can I find them?” Everything about Caedrus twitches, bristles, impatient and nervous. Eder throws Aloth a flummoxed look. Aloth returns it.

“Captain Redora stays and gambles at the Wild Mare.” The words are slow and a bit puzzled. Then the dwarf snorts. “She obviously has enough coin for _that_. If I don’t get her payment, I might as well start carving my soulenet.”

“Yeah, alright, I’ll go and shake her by her ankles— _if_ you can give me an estimate on the time and cost of labor when I get back.” He pauses for a second. “And, naturally, a discount.”

“You’d do that?” the dwarf looks up at him as if Caedrus is his knight in shining armor. Aloth wonders if Caedrus ever gets tired of being looked at like that.

Caedrus shrugs at him, the agitation of earlier gone suddenly. “Sure. Seems like fun. And it’s not like I’m working _completely_ for free.”

The dwarf chuckles. “It all comes down to pands and pires in the end, doesn’t it?”

Caedrus chuckles and walks away without a farewell. He leads them from the shipwright dock at a march, walking with focus and speed and determination. Aloth finds himself struggling to keep up, and Serafen even more so. The bristling mood is back on Caedrus; a tense, dangerous, _don’t-touch-me-I’ll-bite-you_ sort of aura.

Aloth looks at Eder: Eder looks back helplessly.

_Your turn_ , the look says.

Aloth sighs through his nose and thinks about arguing against it. He will freely admit to dispising confrontation, even a gentle one with a friend. But, well, Eder would probably just make it worse, actually. Aloth can practically _see_ how he would.

He thinks hard about how to approach it for the entire walk to the Wild Mare. He's still undecided when they walk through the doors.

Luca, slumped and miserable and miserably _drunk_ , looks up from his stein when they enter. He's sitting at one of the tables nearest to the entrance, and on seeing them, jumps up in a red-faced rage.

Wobbling a little, he comes from around the table and nears them. Caedrus pauses only at the very last second as the man approaches him—as though Caedrus had only just then seen him, when he had entered his field of vision.

Odd. Usually Caedrus saw all.

“You!” Luca snarls. “I hope you're happy. You've gotten me _fired_.”

“I told you to look me up, didn't I?” Caedrus says, patiently.

“Yes well—” Luca cuts himself off, his mouth working without any sounds produced for a second.

Caedrus nods once, slowly. “Then I formally extend the invitation for employment onboard _The Defiant_.” He says the words deliberately, as if he's unsure what the big deal is about the entire situation and why Luca is making such a fuss about it.

“That doesn't make it _better_ ,” Luca finally says, a little brokenly. “That position was—”

“Boring and too cushiony,” Caedrus decides for him. He places both hands on Luca’s shoulders. “ _C’mooon_ ,” he cajoles. “You’d have gotten into hot water anyway when they found out about your nightly activities and love-affair with mead. I, on the other hand, couldn't care less.”

Yes, Aloth thinks dryly. Caedrus’s _usual_ method of comfort: your old situation sucked anyway, look at how much better _I_ can make it.

_Caedrus Oinaeyt_ : _Truly An Ego That Knew No Bounds._ If someone was to one day ask Aloth to write Caedrus’s biography, he has long since decided that he would name it so.

Miserable still, but obviously at the end of his means, Luca relents. Caedrus pats his shoulder, slips him some coin, and tells him to sleep off the mead and report to the ship in the morning.

And just like that, Caedrus seems to have once again repressed whatever is making him so agitated. They go to the bar and ask about Captain Redora and get her pointed out to them. Aloth notices that at least the barkeep isn't flaunting Caedrus’s sold lordship by wearing it for all to see.

Captain Redora is a Vailian woman sitting in a posture of misery and alone at the table nearest the stairs leading to the second floor. Caedrus eyes her for a long second and then turns around and buys a round—for _all_ of them.

The barkeep sets about making the drinks, and Aloth decides that it'll have to be now or much, much later when they've all turned in for the day and he’d have to go to Caedrus’s cabin.

He almost wants to put it off until the end of the day, but then he remembers that Caedrus’s cabin has a bed and he wants to mitigate Caedrus getting any bright ideas like the one he had last night. Gods knew what would happen if a _bed_ was involved.

He slides up to Caedrus. The only clue that his presence is noted is a raise of the scarred brow. Now that he is closer Aloth sees that the scar has actually clipped a bit of the eyelid as well and just barely nicked the skin right beneath the eye. So someone had tried to take an eye from him.

“I need to speak with you,” Aloth says.

Caedrus glances at him out of the corner of his eye but says nothing in response. Aloth has the urge to shake him and yell at him to stop acting like a sulky adolescence.

But he supposes that's what the talk will be for.

“Can you spare a few minutes after we talk to the Captain?” Aloth asks, getting a choke hold on his own patience.

Caedrus nods once, sharply, then turns away to collect the readied drinks.

They approach the table and Caedrus sets down a tankard of grog in front of the Captain. The woman startles at the sound, having been only half awake sitting there. She is young and pretty, her looks somewhat diminished by a nasty long scar running from temple to chin on the left side of her face. Nevertheless, her hair is neatly pulled back into a large bun at the base of her head and her uniform, though far from spotless, is creased neatly and precisely.

“Your next grog is on me,” Caedrus says in a quiet voice and takes the seat closest to her.

“Agracima,” the woman slurs. “Even in the oasis I am parched.” She takes a long, steady drink and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “If you grant wishes, I could use you on my ship.” She smiles at Caedrus with a surprising amount of shyness.

“As the Captain of _The Defiant_ , I'm afraid I'm already taken,” Caedrus tells her, a bit wry but gentle.

“Sientere, frero.” The Captain inclines her head. “Next time around the Wheel, perhaps.” She takes another long drink and finishes off the tankard. Caedrus slides his own untouched one in front of her.

“You don't seem to be having as much fun as the rest of the clientele.”

“Ac. The fun ran dry with the coin.” She smiles wanly, putting her fingers through the handle of the tankard but not raising it to her lips. “When the dancers see more than an empty purse, I will be a content Redora.”

“I’m sure.” Caedrus pauses, stroking the tabletop idly with his gloved fingertips. “And what about the shipwright you owe?”

She blinks at Caedrus once, looking at him as if seeing him for the first time. Then her face takes on a visage of fear. She cringes back from Caedrus so suddenly that she almost topples from her seat.

“Then… you are his hired muscle? Sientere, but you are too late to collect, I'm afraid.” She flinches. “A gang in the northern alley stole every coin. I cannot even hire a crew, much less repay Zamar.”

Caedrus drums his fingers on the tabletop, his brow narrowed in irritation. Finally, he sighs and puts his restless hand palm down on the table with a light slap.

“Why don't you tell me what happened.”

Redora takes the tankard and makes to put it to her lips. Then she sets it down and winces. Caedrus smiles at her and chuckles, then takes the tankard back to set it in front of himself.

Redora clears her throat. “Wizard lights drew me like a moth to the alleys north of the Wild Mare, behind the Valera Estate. They knocked me out with a blow to the back of the head.” She touches at the spot on the back of her ear and hisses. “When I came to, a wolf was sitting on my chest while a group of thugs went through my pockets.”

“A… wolf?”

“Ac. It growled like a thunderstorm and drooled on my uniform.” She sighs, taking a bleak look around. “I stumbled back here and traded all I had for the comfort of the Mare.”

Caedrus sighs and his fingers go drumming again. “I see. It sounds like my quarrel is with this gang, then.” He stands and dips into a short bow. “Farewell.”

They all rise and leave. Stepping back into bright daylight hurts Aloth’s eyes until he blinks them a few times. Wordlessly, Caedrus leads them through the streets and to the alley where the attack happened. Aloth almost reminds him of the talk he had just agreed to, but puts it aside with a sigh. It couldn't be helped. He would just visit Caedrus tonight, then.

The alley is host to a group of spectators watching a band of performers. There is music and singing and bright flashes of magic as they weave a tale in Vailian. Caedrus pauses outside of the gathering almost abruptly, and stands there for a second, motionless. Then he steps forward and engulfs himself in the crowd. Everyone follows him until Aloth is the only one on the outskirts of the throng. He has always hesitated on getting into close quarters with any equivocal group of people, especially what looks to be unwashed sailors and street merchants, not to mention several tatterdemalions who will undoubtedly try to swipe his coin.

He grits his teeth and pushes through nevertheless. His several seconds of hesitation is enough for him to lose track of Caedrus, Eder, and Serafen in the crowd. He pauses and looks around wildly, with bodies brushing close and pressing against his from all sides and making him claustrophobic. Foul breaths and body odor sting his nose and twitch on his gag reflex. He is so uncomfortable and distracted that he doesn't even notice that someone is tugging at the hem of his armor until a voice calls to him.

“Please sir, a coin?”

He looks down and blinks dumbly at the dirty street urchin.

He swallows. Seeing casual poverty up close and personal is not something that he is unfamiliar with. Instinctively, he bristles at it—his father's voice still prominent to this day in telling him that beggars are rich men in disguise, or people who will use the coin that they receive from him for foul pleasures such as drugs or prostitutes, and not the food that they're begging to buy it with. That kids are just agents of parents who mug people in the alleyways. He had recieved exactly three beatings for giving the money that he was supposed to spend on bread and milk to the beggars before he had learned to not even spare them a glance as he walked past them.

He swallows and grits his teeth and drops the coin into the kid's hand, muttering for him to stay out of trouble. He sighs when the urchin bows and scurries away.

He has always scoffed at the belief that miniscule good deeds add up in the long run. Didn't helping people require a certain amount of suffering in exchange? He could give a coin to a thousand street urchins, and they would forget his face and generosity the next day. A lot more easily than his coin purse would. Giving coin to street urchins was a way to go broke and fast, and for what?

A black chill rolls over him as he stands there under the blasting sun. Gods. Gods. All this _time_ , and…

It was something that his father had beat out of him early and savagely, and later on in life he had somehow started to _agree with his father_ —after putting his own practical and logical spin on it.

He almost panics, but forces himself to calm with all of the self-control that he has ever possessed.

There are still bits and pieces of his upbringing within him. The abuse and neglect. He knows this; has acknowledged it and put it to the side. Every now and again it simply surprises him by dangling itself off of some innocent interaction and making him reevaluate himself again. That is all this is, just another piece of himself clicking into place and seeing the light of day.

The trick works, and slowly the panic flows out of him. Humiliation fills him immediately afterwards.

_Caedrus_ would probably snort at him and say that there were ways to help people _without_ any personal liberties being unhinged or damaged. Caedrus, who had lost everything but the clothes on his back, would probably stand here and preach at him self-importantly about how ‘it was the privilege of the strong to take care of the weak’.

But here _Caedrus_ was, running around all over Queen's Berth, wasting his time, money, and energy on ‘helping people’ while Eothas strode away with half his soul. And none of them could even criticize him on it, because how could one criticize _helping people_ without coming off as heartless?

A hand settles on his shoulder and Aloth jumps instinctively, spinning around in a quick motion with his heart thundering. He realizes he is enraged and spoiling for a fight.

“Heh, easy, Al.” Eder chuckles. Aloth stares at him for a few seconds, privately trying to calm himself. Then he purses his lips at Eder. Al?

“I-I lost sight of you all,” Aloth says, smoothing his hands down his armor to gloss over his startlement. To gloss over everything he had been thinking.

He notices that the crowd has abated quite a bit, and the performers are sitting on a bench together and no longer putting on their act. It doesn't sit right with him to have been so distracted that he hadn't noticed. Wryly, he wonders how much money he has lost to wandering hands in that time.

“We're heading back to the ship,” Eder tells him. “We found out the guy who attacked Redora doesn't come out of his hidey hole till after dark.”

They start to walk together towards the ship. Caedrus and Sarefen are nowhere to be seen.

“And we're going to just spend the entire day _waiting_ for him? Is a small discount on patching the ship really worth all of this?”

Eder shrugs and doesn't say anything. Aloth scoffs.

Redora doesn't have the money—that should have been that, and they should've just went back to the shipwright and told him so. Its none of their concern that she got robbed.

It feels like… it feels like Caedrus is doing it intentionally. Wasting time, almost, under the pretense of getting more coin to purchase food and repairs for the ship. Offering to do small tasks for other people that won't even immediately turn into money—like mapping the Archipelago or getting Redora’s money back. Oh, he always asks for _something_ in return, but it's flimsy at best. A ten percent discount on getting the ship fixed won't really make a big difference in the grand scheme of the cost, and especially won't make up for all the Godsdamned time it's taking him.

He says this to Eder and gets another shrug for his trouble.

“Well, sure, that's what I figured, too. And you saw how _that_ went. It's not like we can force him to do anything. If he doesn't want to go after Eothas, then I guess…” his voice trails off and he shrugs yet again. Aloth sees the reluctance behind it. It's not hard to tell, what with everything he knows about Eder's history, that the man has personal investment in going after Eothas. Way more than Caedrus seems to, at the very least, and Caedrus is the one who _died_.

“Then we need to persuade him of the gravity of the situation,” Aloth decides. “Somehow.”

“And if that doesn't work, then we knock him out and commandeer the ship.” Eder nods seriously, as if this had been a plan that they had previously discussed and decided upon. Aloth smiles almost despite himself.

“Indeed. Mutiny is always a valid second choice.”

There are only a few people on board when they get back to the ship. Caedrus had split the crew into even groups and established a rotation so that one third of them could stay on board to guard and clean the ship while the other two groups went on shore leave. He called them ‘duty sections’, these people that stayed behind, and Aloth had been mystified and bewildered by the idea. He had wondered where Caedrus had gotten it from.

They find out that Caedrus isn't yet on board.

They think nothing of it at first and retire to the berthing. Eder goes over his gear and takes a nap. Aloth loses himself in reading to block out further inspection of his habits and world views and his father's influence in them. It's something he always has to stop himself from doing after a revelation like the one he has had. He wants himself to be cleared and clean of the wretched man, but he knows it shall never happen. He cannot take away his own face, the color of his eyes and hair, the arch of his brows—things that always remind him that he is his father's son.

Eder rising from his cot marks that an hour has gone by, exactly. Caedrus had timed him on several occasions when they were all running together in years past. For some reason the fact that Eder slept for exactly one hour any time he took a nap was an endless source of amusement to Caedrus.

Aloth snorts and goes back to reading. He actually is starting to not mind the ship that much. Naturally, in his travels over these last five years he'd been on his fair share of ships, and had resented the experience equally each time. This feels different, though. Perhaps it's because he knows the people he's sleeping next to, or the fact that Caedrus owns the ship, or maybe because it's the cleanest ship that Aloth has been on, but there is just something comforting about it. The quiet, rhythmic groans of the wood, the sound of the water lapping gently against the hull, the soothing sway of the ship at night that puts him down like a baby.

He'll be wistful to leave it.

It comes on gradually, just a small worry that needles him and distracts him enough to repeat a few lines of reading that he had not internalized. When this happens for the fourth time, he puts the book down, frowns, thinks, and then swears hotly, jumping out of his hammock.

He finds Eder in the mess having a late lunch with Beodal and another sailor.

“It seems he gave us the slip,” Aloth announces, sitting down across from him.

Eder looks at him blankly for a moment, and then in realization.

“Oh.” He puts down his hunk of bread. “Well, he has to come back to the ship eventually, right?”

“Yes, but who knows what he's doing out there right now.” Aloth gestures through the air impatiently and then slaps his hand down on the table. He's equally pissed and worried. If Caedrus picked a needless fight and _lost_ , there went Eora's best and brightest hope of finding out about and stopping... whatever the Hel Eothas was doing. That and Caedrus would be dead, which was never good for anyone.

Eder doesn't seem overly worried about this. “Look, if anything, we can wait near the entrance to the alleyway around dark. We know he's going there eventually, we'll catch up to him.”

“If he doesn't get himself killed beforehand,” Aloth mutters. Though he has to admit that Eder's idea has merit, he's far too impatient to just wait around until dusk. That sneaky son of a...

Eder laughs. “It's cute that you're so worried about him.”

Aloth bristles and shows his teeth at Eder in a gesture that is not a smile. It accomplishes nothing besides making him laugh harder, so Aloth rises and stalks back to the berthing.

If he was to be brutally honest with himself, it is almost an insult to be left behind like this. Barring serious injury or a sickness, Caedrus always took him along, anywhere he went. And, yes, Caedrus's recent admittance has put that in a different light, but not to the point that Aloth no longer wants to come along with him.

Logic tells him that his worry and offense is unfounded. Caedrus can take care of himself and has back up, and would probably mock Aloth if he knew about his feelings. But, as a lot of things, it is the principle of the matter.

He tries to go back to reading and fails. He stalks topside, looks at the position of the sun—at least three more hours until sunset—then walks back down and starts going over his gear.

His leather armor is getting pretty frayed. He tries to keep it oiled, but the sun is very merciless on the soft leather. Though Aedyr is also hot and humid, the sun just seems _closer_ in the Archipelago, somehow. More brutal.

And in Aedyr he has Taman Dunhall—a retired armorer a stone's throw away from his house, whom he can rely on to do all the necessary upkeep. An armorer who would probably purse his lips and tsk at the fact that Aloth has been putting his armor through nearly constant water damage.

He should switch to something breathier and less tedious to dry; like a robe (Caedrus and Eder would ridicule him endlessly), or some nice padded armor made from cloth, like Serafen’s. Well, he'd be sure to take his pickings from whatever dungeon Caedrus led them to next.

With no other discernible way to pass the time, Aloth climbs into his own hammock and almost immediately falls asleep.

* * *

 

He wakes to Eder shaking his shoulder.

“Hey, it's getting awfully late. We catching up with Caedrus or what?” Aloth blinks at him a few times and sits up abruptly. Eder is already in full gear, ready to go.

“How long have I slept? What time is it?”

“Past time for us to have left,” Eder tells him. “Storm came outta nowhere like an hour ago. Had to help the guys tie stuff down up top. Just got down.”

Aloth swings out and stands. Sleep clings at him, in that unpleasantly groggy way that leaves him feeling more tired than when he fell asleep. All in all, his grumpiness is perfectly suited to club Caedrus upside the head for his trick.

“Wonder what those two have been up to around town all day,” Eder says while Aloth changes into his gear. He leans casually against the frame of the berthing entrance, hair still damp and starting to curl around the neck and ears.

“Hopefully earning a lot of money so that Caedrus can supply us to set sail.” A thought occurs to him. “Or trying to get an audience with the Queen so that we know where we're setting sail _to_.”

“Maybe.” Eder snorts. “Too responsible, though. You're not real good at thinking like Caedrus thinks, Al.”

The _nickname_ again. “I'm aware. But I always go into it with the expectation that Caedrus will disappoint me—and with a small, secret hope that he will pleasantly surprise me.”

“Wow. Glad to know you care so much.”

“I do care.” Caedrus had a specialized spot of ‘annoying pain in the ass, but would most certainly save from death or injury’ in Aloth's book of friends. “But I also know him just as well as you do.”

“As much as he wants you to know him _better_.”

Aloth sighs. “I see this will be an endless source of entertainment for you.”

“Hey, better you than me, is all I'm sayin’.”

Aloth pauses and eyes him. “ _Really_?”

“Yeah, he kinda misinterpreted some stuff, I guess. Had to clear the air.” Eder shifts where he stands. “Don't know who was more relieved, me or him.”

Aloth doesn't know how to take this. Usually, he would immediately start teasing, but Eder's clear legitimate discomfort and weird air of bashful regret is too genuine to make fun of, so Aloth simply gets himself ready in silence.

He wishes it was as easy for _him_ to ‘clear the air’ between himself and Caedrus, but they do not have the intensity of friendship that Eder and Caedrus do. Aloth has always kept Caedrus at arm's length—it was what he did with everyone—and Caedrus had never paid him all that much attention, except for a brief period after Aloth admitted to being a Leaden Key spy.

And now, suddenly, on the eve of their meeting again five years later, Caedrus announces an interest in him and says it in a way that suggests he has felt this way since they met.

Blasted, confounding man.

In all of his turmoil, he forgets that Eder told him of a storm, and is promptly drenched within minutes of walking outside. But at least he isn't cold, and is certainly more awake.

An odd peace washes over him. He likes nighttime in the Archipelago, when it is just warm enough to be pleasant and not sweltering. In the ruins, the viperous rattle of cicadas was always a nice backdrop of noise that continued well into the night. There's nothing like that here, and he finds that he misses it. The streets are empty, everyone driven out by the rain and nightfall. Somehow, Queen's Berth retains its friendliness despite.

The rain slows to a fine mist that leaves little butterfly kisses on his cheeks by the time they reach the entrance to the alleyway.

And Aloth takes off into a sprint when he sees bright flashes of light up ahead.

Damned foolish—!

Yep, and there is Caedrus and Serafen, fighting for their Godsdamned lives against no less than six people and a wolf.

Two mages, his mind automatically picks out. He doesn't tend to attack anyone in the thick of melee unless he absolutely has to, or has positioned himself behind their backs and can get a clear shot. Using magic on a cluster of people has too big of a possibility to catch one of his own.

He calls flame to his hands, as automatic to him as breathing. His body tends to respond with it sometimes even without his input, until his brain can get out of the shock of battle and start to actually strategize.

Two fireballs catch the mage that has her back to Aloth, and she goes down screaming and frantically batting the fire off of her robes. Aloth casts a puddle of oil to appear around her and watches as it too catches on fire. Her dying screams are very loud until they are not.

It is as good a thing as any to announce their arrival—as is Eder's shout as he lunges into the thick of the melee, saber flashing.

No more flanking surprise attacks, Aloth thinks when the other mage immediately turns his attention to him. He suddenly grows apprehensive. It has been… a year and a half, perhaps, since he's had a _proper_ duel, and that's not the type of thing one can slack off in and still expect to win.

He casts a veil piercing thrust, one of his favorites due to its accuracy and damage and lack of counters. The other mage manages to get a spirit shield up just in time to deflect it, and Aloth has to leap to the side to avoid the stream of flame that he evokes immediately afterwards. He rolls and regains his feet, then cancels the flame out with a frosty fog. He eyes the opposing wizard with interest. He's fast in a way that speaks of careful preplanning of his spells.

“Impressive,” Aloth calls out to him, brushing off his armor fastidiously and usuing every available second to think. Spells took time to cast—particularly the spells that Aloth was fond of using. He would not win this fight that way.

_Fleet Feet for close combat, Ironskin for pro—_

He feels the other mage ready something, just a little twinge in the air that raises the hair on his arms, and then reels back as pain explodes in his left thigh from the conjured blades that rise from the ground. When he looks down, the head of a ghostly spear stares back at him through his thigh, just corporeal enough to give the impression of being stabbed with an actual physical thing.

“Cannot say the same for you, Aedyran,” the mage sneers. He cancels the spell and moves towards him cautiously.

Aloth falls to the knee of his injured leg when he tries to take a step back. He rises again and hobbles back a few steps, keeping a set range between them.

_Close combat out of the question, then. Something ranged and fast to..._.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Caedrus careen from a blow upon the temple. His attacker presses forward and sweeps his legs out from under him in a fluid motion. Caedrus falls to the ground, and the wolf immediately pounces onto his prone form.

“Going to run all day?”

_Focus_!

Annoyed, he looks back at his pursuer. “Not quite.”

He raises a hand into the air and calls down missiles, then flings a second vail peircing thrust at him when he is distracted. The thrust catches him through the shoulder, distracting him enough to drop his shield. The missiles start to bombard him freely, and Aloth turns away.

During the time that his focus was elsewhere, Caedrus had managed to overpower the wolf and rise to his feet again. The Vint Pick is not in his hand, and Aloth only has time to blink before one of the thugs is already on him again, swinging a saber at his neck. Caedrus bats it away and stumbles back out of range. There's something ungraceful about his movements, as though he's injured. The attacker closes the distance between them and slashes downwards mightily, and Caedrus just barely manages to leap away.

Aloth racks his brain for a spell that doesn't cover a large area, something to—something that can—

The hairs on his arms stand on end, and he looks up in startlement. Caedrus's hand is planted squarely on his attackers face, frost blooming out and across the man's skin from where Caedrus is touching him.

Bleak Fang streaks and flashes, and the man's throat bursts open in a squirting shower of gore. Caedrus lets him drop to the ground, and lunges himself at his next target.

Frost still lingers in the man's hair, like crystals when it catches the moonlight.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I've been gone such a long time. That Navy life, you know. Long time out at sea, but hopefully we're gonna be pulling in soon and I can update more frequently.  
> In the meantime, have a 5k word chapter to make up for the absence.  
> I, uh, started writing chapter one of the story that follows the first game. It's coming along pretty well, it's already over 4k words long. Caedrus is… a pretty chatty narrator, and its from his point of view, so it's not like I can skip certain parts like I can in this story (as demonstrated by this chapter). Specifically in the first twenty minutes of the first game, with the bîawac and the ruins and meeting Thaos and all that jazz. And that's just the first chapter.


	6. Reveal

_v.t. to make known; divulge_

* * *

 

“This was,” Aloth says through panting huffs of air, “undoubtedly, the stupidest thing you have ever done, Caedrus.”

The blood from the pile of bodies looks black as it runs over the pretty stone of the Berth’s pavement. Aloth looks away, disquiet. How did it even _come_ to this? Who had started it? It doesn't sit well with him that he has had a hand in killing people that he has never met or judged for himself to have deserved such a fate.

All he has is Caedrus's word that they deserved it, and that's not nearly enough.

“Haven't you ever heard of ‘all’s well that ends well’?” Caedrus says cheerily, and a tad too loudly.

Acting as though they hadn't just killed six people, he ruffles the top of Serafen’s head as though he is a child, then practically throws himself at Eder, winding an arm companionately around his shoulders and leaning into him heavily.

“Thanks for your help, though. My guardian angels,” he coos, and puts a hand over his heart.

“Are you _drunk_?” Aloth hisses at him, disgusted for too many reasons to name.

Caedrus makes a ‘so-so' gesture at him.

Aloth turns his glare onto Serafen, and the orlan raises his hands in a pacifying manner. “He wanted me to show him around. I told the lad that the only way to know any place was by its taverns.”

“The Huana make this lovely brew,” Caedrus says dreamily. “Diabö, I think it's called? Its very strong. I even found a bottle of rymsjódda! You know how long its been since I've had rymsjódda? Like… a really long time. I can't do math right now.” He smiles apologetically at Aloth.

“And you thought it was a good idea to pick a fight with several armed hooligans while shitfaced and outnumbered three to one?” Aloth spits.

Caedrus gives an ungraceful snorting laugh. “I've never heard you say ‘shitfaced’ before, darling,” he says, grinning from ear to ear at Aloth as if he has made his night. “And the day that I can't fight drunk is the day that Eothas can put me into the ground,” he announces loudly.

A wash of cold, like frigid water, runs down Aloth's spine and douses his rage immediately. Caedrus says it so easily and cheekily, as though his own death is a foregone conclusion that he has come to terms with. Startled and blank, Aloth looks at Eder.

“Eothas _isn't_ going to put you into the ground,” Eder tells him seriously.

“It's true,” Aloth says, forcing confidence into his voice. He hopes Caedrus is too drunk to notice how it rings with hollowness.

He has never thought about Caedrus dying with any sort of seriousness. In the days of their first adventure together, there were times and battles in which the thought flashed in his head, but was quickly snuffed each time—usually by Caedrus getting himself out of whatever scrap they were in. The idea of anything actually killing him was borderline laughable after everything that Aloth had seen him survive.

Caedrus seemed to have almost unbelievable luck sometimes, the type that made one wonder if he really did have the Gods’ protection. There were times, five years ago, when he seemed too large and distinguished to simply die like any other man. He was half mad by the end of it all, tortured by visions, but Aloth had admired him.

And now he wonders where the man he had admired has gone to.

“How did this even happen?” Aloth asks, changing the subject before his mind can stray too far from him. “Can you really not be left alone for an evening without finding some minor catastrophe to involve yourself in?”

“Whatever, those guys were assholes. Posturing like they owned the damn place and had every right to rob anyone they pleased. They pissed me off.”

“So that makes them deserving of death?” Aloth says incredulously.

“I've killed people for less,” Caedrus says quietly. “You shouldn't forget that I'm a mercenary, political assassin. I kill people because someone somewhere has decided that they need to die, for _whatever_ reason, and they cough up the money to pay me to do it.” He says it with such poise and readiness that Aloth wonders if he is quoting someone else.

“So in the end, I guess it doesn't make you any better than any common thug.”

Caedrus snorts but doesn't argue.

The silence lasts all the way to the ship.

* * *

 

Its not until he has peeled himself out of his armor and assessed his injuries that Aloth remembers about the seeming magic trick that Caedrus had performed in battle.

Not seeming, he corrects himself gravely. He had felt the twinge of it, in the way of mages, in the way of magic responding to magic. His senses had been revved up to high capacity from his fight with the other mage, or else he wouldn't have felt it—just seen it, and probably thought it an adrenaline illusion later on what with how fast it all happened.

So, first things first: Caedrus had magic, and had never let anyone know about it.

He wants to be insulted, and he is, but his interest and curiosity quickly overpowers it. Why on earth would anyone hide such an advantage? Caedrus has always been roguish and a bit of a trickster in his battle style, and Aloth can immediately think of at least half a dozen spells that could help him. That could keep him safer, maybe even against Eothas.

Second things second: how could he bring the subject up to him? Caedrus had obviously hidden his talent for a reason. Would he even be open to exploring it or receiving coaching?

Well, if nothing else, it certainly would do to keep his knowledge of Caedrus's magic from Caedrus. He puts on clean garments and goes to the Captain's cabin, knocking on the closed door.

“Come on in.”

The scene that he enters on is not one that he had expected. For a moment, he lingers inside the threshold and takes it all in, suddenly feeling unwelcome.

Caedrus lays stretched out on his bed, shirtless, among furs and sheets tinged red with blood. Vela sits beside him, balancing a bucket in her lap and carefully pressing a wet rag against a garrish and bloody slit in the meat of Caedrus side.

“Well?” Caedrus says expectantly, when Aloth has stood in the doorframe without entering for several seconds.

“Ah, forgive the intrusion, Caedrus, I was simply…” He can't keep his eyes from the injury. He tries to pull them away and to Caedrus's face, but they stray back. “Did you receive that in the battle?”

“Where else could I have gotten it from?” He waves a hand through the air when Aloth's brows furrow at his tone. “The pain. Sorry.”

“I… can I…” He steps forward until he is at the foot of the bed and gestures.

“You'll have to ask my nurse.”

Aloth looks down at Vela Oiácaedrus, suddenly awkward. He's never been good or intelligent with children. Did you talk down to them and coo at them, or speak plainly? And how did you reason with them? He doesn't even know what age she is now. Six? Seven? He knows she is kind of bratty and headstrong, and that Caedrus still looks at her as if he is ready to lay the world at her feet—that hadn't changed.

“Go on and get to bed, ástin mín,” Caedrus tells her quietly, obviously taking pity on Aloth.

For a moment father and daughter look at each other, then Vela wraps him up in a hug and whispers something in his ear. Caedrus whispers back and kisses her cheek with a loud smooching noise that makes he giggle. She untangles herself and holds the bucket out to Aloth, jumping down from the bed when he has taken it.

“And then there were two,” Caedrus croons when the door has closed behind Vela.

“I did not mean to kick her out,” Aloth murmurs, setting the bucket down onto the floor.

“Eh. It's probably not good for her to see me in this state. I, uh…” Aloth raises his eyes to look at him when he doesn't continue, but Caedrus simply waves it away. “So are we going to play doctor now?” he asks.

“What?”

“Nevermiiiind.” Caedrus rolls his eyes.

“Roll onto your uninjured side,” Aloth instructs him. Caedrus does, and Aloth tsks when he sees the wound has gone all the way through, and left a twin injury on his back. “What _happened_?”

“Dagger happened.”

“Well, it doesn't seem to have injured anything vital,” Aloth decides after a moment of inspection. “Just the meat. The blood is slowing, too.”

“Great. So I won't die?” Caedrus asks with mock relief as he rolls back over.

“I wish you would stop speaking about dying,” Aloth snaps suddenly, glaring at him. “And I really wish you weren't _drunk_ right now, and took me seriously for once in your life.”

Caedrus looks at him in surprise. “Okay,” he says slowly after a second. “Didn't realize this was more than a social visit. I'm all ears and seriousness.”

Aloth snorts and paces to the bookshelf, then paces back—it's no more than three steps.

“Why have you never told me that you have magic?” he demands.

Caedrus blinks at him, and if Aloth wasn't as annoyed he would have laughed at the expression that overtakes his face—a rather see-through attempt at a clueless visage.

Seeing that it's doing him no good, he drops it with a huff after a second and takes a deep breath in.

“You saw, hm?”

“Yes.”

“Well.”

He doesn't say anything else. Aloth sighs out of his nose.

“How long have you known?”

Caedrus quirks a brow at him. “What kind of a question is that? My entire life, of course. Or most of it, anyway.”

“Most of it?”

“I remember the first magical thing I did, but nothing before that. Stuff was _hardly_ setting itself on fire around me when I was upset as a baby,” he says dryly.

“That's a fictitious belief.”

“Really?”

“ _Yes_.”

“Well, that's something, I guess.” Caedrus shrugs.

“Usually the first instance of magical ability breaking through happens around sixteen or eighteen years of age for us,” Aloth tells him. “Set off by an event of very heightened emotion or self-preservation.”

“Was it your father, for you?” Caedrus asks.

“...Yes.” Two times his life had changed forever because of that man. He clears his throat. “And you?”

“Is this something wizards talk about at parties when meeting each other?” he wonders. “‘So what was _your_ magical happenstance?’”

“You're _hardly_ a wizard.”

“So it _is_ what they talk about?”

“ _Caedrus_.”

Caedrus gives him an innocent smile that slowly warps into a deriding one. _You're gonna have to try harder than that, darling_ , it says.

“Stop derailing the conversation.”

They look at each other with narrowed eyes for a moment. Then Caedrus tuts in a way that suggests Aloth is making things difficult for him. His eyes are clear and shrewd, like they always are, and Aloth suddenly realizes that Caedrus had been exaggerating the extent of his inebriated state earlier. But why?

“Very well.” Caedrus scrunches his nose up, then releases a breath. “When I was very young and still living in the Land, I went to accompany the hunters on one of their expeditions. There was a hunter that I idolized, Wylym, who taught me how to sneak up on prey unnoticed. He was a bit of a big deal in the clan, and I guess some would have called me his protege. Anyway, after about two days on the prowl, we split from the main group—an idiocy, as there should have been at least four of us, but Wylym liked taking risks. We went to stalk a small herd of bison. Wylym simply wanted to get recon on the herd and then go back to get the main group. Or so he said.” He stops for a second, staring hard straight ahead. “Anyway. We weren't the only ones stalking the bison. A pack of rymyúfewh—ice wolves—also had their sights set on the herd. When the herd stopped for the night, Wylym talked me into going and killing one of the puny ones that had settled a bit farther away from the herd. He wanted to show off by taking such a prize with just the two of us. Long story short, the rymyúfewh did not like us going after their prey and attacked us right after we had speared the bison. The bison herd _also_ didn't like us killing one of their own: so, suddenly, we were stuck between a herd of pissed off nine foot tall bison and a pack of vicious ice wolves whose bite is so cold that it'll give you frostbite. Wylym was killed, and I managed to chase the animals off with fire. Created from my own hands.” The last of this is said in a rushed and flat manner. He stops the story there, as if there was nothing more to say or elaborate on.

“I see,” Aloth says, not knowing what else there was to say. “And is that why you left the White that Wends?”

Caedrus tilts his head to the side. “I thought we were here to talk about magic.”

“We are. But I'm curious.” It takes a lot to admit to it. “You never speak of your time in your homeland.”

“Because it's boring,” Caedrus tells him, almost aggressively. “And if you must know, yes, it is why I left. One of the reasons, at least. After I came back carrying the corpse of the clan's golden boy, I was treated _differently_.”

“It doesn't explain why you have hidden your magical aptitude. Repressed and untrained magic is dangerous, Caedrus.”

Caedrus snorts. “Who said it's untrained?” he says loftily.

Great, Aloth thinks. He's degraded things between them again. He shouldn't have pressed about the story.

“You had a master?” he asks.

“No, I looked at some of your books at night when we were traveling.” He gives Aloth a sly smile, trying to bait him. “Looked at some of the books I had shipped to Caed Nua, too, and talked about the subject in depth with visiting wizards that I hosted at the Nua.”

Aloth doesn't rise up to the bait of his first admittance. It is just Caedrus trying to derail the conversation again.

It's also probably true. Caedrus had little respect for people's personal property.

“Reading about magic and talking about magic are not the same as practicing it and mastering it.”

“But it's a part of it, isn't it.” He doesn't even phrase it as a question, and speaks in a proud way, like he already knows the answer.

“It is,” Aloth says, trying to be patient. He meets Caedrus's eyes. “And I would offer to teach you properly, if you are willing.”

“ _Really_?” Caedrus says with interest, as though Aloth has just proposed a shady and profitable deal to him. He smiles almost maliciously at Aloth and tilts his head to the side, considering.

There is always an inherent quality of mocking about Caedrus, as though everything going on in any given moment was all part of some grand drollery that only he could see.

Gods, Aloth would be a fool and a half to coach him—he knows this. Caedrus was irreverent, obnoxious, violent, and careless—just to name a few of his stellar qualities.

Not to mention his eerie ability to cover any emotion with a thick, glossy coat of charisma and humor, until he stabbed a man seemingly out of nowhere and for no reason.

Wild and unpredictable mood swings were not what a wise man looked for in a pupil when he had his choice. Especially when that wise man was prone to them himself. He knows that if Caedrus accepts, he will have consigned himself to a lot of teeth grinding and headaches.

But he also wants to keep Caedrus safe. He wants to keep Caedrus safe, and he wants to change him. It is a dishonorable thing to want to do, perhaps, but he did not sign up to gut people in back alleyways on the judgement of a man that he only half-respects.

“Very well,” Caedrus says finally. “I accept. But you will only teach me the spells that I _want_ to learn.”

Aloth openly sneers at him. “Such as?”

Caedrus waves a hand through the air. “I'll make you a list. I know how you like those.”

“Fine.”

“ _Fine_. We'll begin…” he frowns and licks his lips. “Whenever I have the time, I suppose. In the evenings,” he decides. “And only for about an hour or two.”

Aloth pressed his teeth together and nods tightly. Of course he would not have a say in any of this.

Caedrus smiles slowly, pleased at his consent.

“I would advise getting some rest,” he says, which is just as good a way to dismiss Aloth as any. “We're going to the Bardatto estate tomorrow. Serafen and I found that Larro kid tonight and kept him from getting a sword through his heart. I figure Mamma Bardatto owes me something for it.”

“Are you ever actually going to do what we are here to do?” Aloth growls.

Caedrus looks at him cooly, giving away nothing. “Perhaps. When I feel like it.”

Aloth sighs, and goes.

* * *

 

 

> _Caedruscannon #1:_
> 
> Because Glamfellen do not have individual last names, Caedrus made one of his own when he left the White that Wends— _Oínaeyt_ translating to “of naught”. It was a denouncement of his homeland and people, and a clean slate for himself.
> 
> _Oiácaedrus_ is the last name he gave his daughter when he adopted her. It translates to "of Caedrus", and is a way to possessively stamp his familial ties to Vela. He has a secret and slightly arrogant fantasy that in the generations ahead, all the members of his family will carry on the name and will be able to be traced back to as being "of Caedrus".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of a talky chapter where nothing much happens, but I didn't want to make the next chapter like 8k words long by adding this little bit on top of it, so I made it its own chapter.
> 
> Next chapter will (obviously) be all about the family feud between the Bardattos and Valeras. It's gonna be a big one.


	7. Reconcile

  1. _to cause to become friendly or peaceable again_



* * *

 

“Rather ostentatious, isn't it?” Caedrus muses, staring up at the Bardatto estate. 

Colorful flowers bloom in boxes under every window, and bright torches flag the top and bottom of the staircase leading up to the front door. A crest hangs high above the door, of royal blue and pure white, the emblem being that of two hands exchanging coin.

“You used to own a  _ castle _ ,” Aloth says dryly. 

“Don't remind me,” Caedrus bemoans. He uses the bronzed knocker on the door. It's in the shape of a sitting lion. “My poor baby.”

The door is opened almost immediately, suggesting that the Bardattos had wealth enough to hire someone just to open doors. A stone-faced guard greets them—or rather stares at them expectantly, without saying anything.

“I'm here to see Nera Bardatto, if you please,” Caedrus announces. “She knows me.”

The guard nods once and opens the door wider to admit them inside. 

There is a short red rug just inside the door that runs the modest distance of the foyer, covering floors of immaculately clean marble. Two beautifully carved identical sculptures stand on both sides of the door, and several armed but stylishly clothed guards mill about, as well as various servants doing menial tasks. The guard leads them deeper into the house, past a couch and table and chair that sit before a lit hearth. Two more sculptures flag the hearth, these ones of identical suits of armor.

The entire place screams wealth. For some reason, it's a bit disconcerting to Aloth. Perhaps he's been away from the comforts of luxury for too long. 

But he  _ is _ nobility, and being in the home of other nobility makes his spine straighten and his mind automatically go over his own appearance with a critical eye.

He wishes he wasn't in armor right now, trailing next to Caedrus—who was in plain clothes—and looking like a bodyguard. All of them looked it, though perhaps they had too much personality and difference in their dress to come off as hired help. Something to hope for, at the very least.

Nara Bardatto leans against a display case with a sheathed dagger inside it—one of two display cases that flaunt weapons. Probably ancestral ones. The display cases flank a large and ornately carved couch that Aloth can say with almost certainty is probably very uncomfortable. 

Ah, the backwardness of wealth. 

Nera looks up from her ledger at their approaching footsteps. A smile tries to take her features, but Aloth sees her battle it back. She waves the guard away. 

“Larro has returned to the estate intact. Belfetto.” She gives Caedrus a curtsey.

“Yeah. Found him dueling behind the waterfall. You're lucky he's not dead right now.” Caedrus says it with a surprising amount of seriousness and care. He's probably faking it, Aloth thinks, remembering last night and his ‘inebriated’ state. It was hard to tell what was what with Caedrus, sometimes, since he spent so much time of every conversation pretending to be shocked or confused or taken aback only to spin it all into a joke.

“I see.” The hands that had just loosened from around her ledger become stiff again. “I am not surprised. Too much Bardatto blood has been spilled in the name of vengiatta.”

“I get the feeling that this is part of something larger,” Caedrus says, not bothering to mince words. “Much as I know us Vailians to duel over any slight problem.” He smiles at her. 

“Ac. Nothing has been solved, only delayed. If it is not this week, then it will be the next.” Aloth doesn't know what she's referring to, but stops wondering about it when she pulls out a large coin pouch and hands it to Caedrus. She says something in Vailian to him, a bit hesitant, and Caedrus replies back with a chuckle. She marks something on her ledger and snaps it shut, looking back up at Caedrus with a half-smile.

“You have not met mother, have you?” 

“I make it a habit not to meet the parents.” Caedrus smiles slyly at her. Aloth has to resist the urge to stomp on his foot. 

“What?” Nera's brows narrow together.

“Nevermind.” His smile turns charming, if a bit disappointed.

“Well, I'm certain she'll have work for someone invested in the family. And a fellow countryman, no less.”

“I will be glad to make her acquaintance.”

“You will find her office behind the double doors just down that hall.”

“Agracima.” In a smooth flourish, he kisses the back of her hand. Aloth sees her eyes grow wide. Caedrus lets her hand drop and spins to walk where they've been directed.

“I wish you wouldn't tease that girl,” Aloth sighs  once they're out of Nera's range of hearing. “She's half your age. Probably a quarter of it, actually.”

“On the contrary, if you did the math, I'm only about half a decade her senior. In puny little human years.”

“Five years is still a considerable distance in age for  _ humans _ ,” Eder says. He sounds surprisingly sharp, but Aloth isn't shocked. Eder had not been pleased with Caedrus's insistence of going to resolve things at the estate this morning, and had complained all the way to the shipwright’s, and then all the way here.

Caedrus ignores him in favor of knocking on the grand double doors that they have stopped in front of. 

“Yes. Enter.” 

The doors open to a large office, remarkably bare but for a crowded desk with a chair behind it and a chest in the corner. A guard leans against the wall near it.

“Ah, yes. The newcomer. I  _ thought _ you might visit,” a woman dressed in full plated armor says, looking up briefly from the scroll she is reading. She's not sitting at the desk, instead leaning a hip against a corner of it, as if they had caught her on her way out.

“Lady Ezzali Bardatto,” she introduces herself. “Custom dictates I say ‘at your service’, but I have not the time for such lies.” She speaks in a sharply articulated manner, all of her consonants almost overly pronounced. Her eyes cooly map Caedrus's person while she does so, and Caedrus responds in the way he always does while being analyzed: with the smile of a man who knew he was being appraised and had the absolute and unwavering confidence that he was up to standard.

“You're the one who saw my son dueling with the Valera boy?” Ezzali finally asks him.

“Indeed.”

“Well, at least he survives to learn from his mistake.” Her blade-like voice holds no motherly warmth. 

A business woman first and last, Aloth decides. More's the pity for the kids. No wonder they're dueling in the streets.

“Regardless, those who aid my blood profit by it.” 

She produces a purse from a desk drawer and tosses it in Caedrus's direction. 

Aloth’s brows rise a little. Yes, wealthy  _ indeed _ , to pay the same person twice for the same task. Perhaps she did not know that her daughter already payed—or perhaps it was a display.

Caedrus is obviously not wondering about the why's as he easily snatches the coin purse out of the air and puts it onto his person. 

“Should I keep a lookout in the future?” he asks her lightly, almost teasingly. “I'm not keen on seeing kids kill each other.”

“No, I don't imagine anyone is.” She sighs and turns away, mouth pursing. “When Valera and Bardatto cross each other, only blood and sorrow remain.” 

“Then why not  _ stop _ crossing each other?” Eder says. “It's your kids out there.”

Ezzali eyes him with a narrowed gaze, one finger tapping against the edge of the desk. “Perhaps in time, if great Woedica judges us worthy of supporting the company.” Her eyes pin to Caedrus again. “Word has spread fast about your little spectacle at the docks. You've certainly caught everyone's attention.” 

“A requirement everywhere I go,” Caedrus purrs. “Unless it is not.”

A look passes between the two of them for a moment. Aloth recognizes that Caedrus has just said something that conveys a certain message  in certain people's ears—and it seems Ezzali Bardatto is one of those people.

“Perhaps the Watcher of Caed Nua and House Bardatto can help one another,” Ezzali says carefully, suddenly more engaged than she has been since they've walked through the door.

“Perhaps,” Caedrus says, equally careful. “But only in certain ways.”

Ezzali narrows her eyes. “I see.” 

“I'm glad that you do. What is it you want, then?” Caedrus crosses his arms in front of his chest.

“Queen's Berth whispers of a Valera plot against my family. Something grander than pointless duels.” She taps her fingers against her chin, thoughtful. “You are a newcomer to the Deadfire. Uniquely positioned to loosen Valera tongues.”

“As in rip them out?” Caedrus says dryly. 

Ezzali chuckles. “Much too much of an exhibit, as much as it pains me to decline the offer.” She leans forward a little. “No, I am after information. For now. Zili Valera spends his days strumming a lute by the watchtowers. A meek-tempered boy. Fonder of song and drink than the family business.  _ He _ might spill some of his family affairs.”

“And if there's no plot?” 

“Then I will sleep better at night.” She shrugs. “Try not to alert the Valeras of our knowledge. That is the point of involving an outside agent.”

“You wound me, my lady,” Caedrus croons, putting a hand over his heart.

Ezzali Bardatto doesn't seem amused. “Trust is  _ earned _ .”

She returns her attention to the scroll. After a long second, Caedrus spins on his heel and leaves the room, apparently having been dismissed. All in all, a strange conversation. Aloth feels as though much more was said than what he had heard. And now all of a sudden they're part of some grand family power struggle. If nothing else, Caedrus has an amazing ability to weasel his way into matters that did not concern him.

They follow Caedrus outside and down the staircase in silence before he pauses and sits down on the last stair, with his back pressed against the handrail stanchion. He opens his knapsack and gets out his leather bound journal and a quill, writing leisurely for a few seconds before snapping it closed again and setting it down on the stair beside him. Both elbows on his knees, he eyes the bustling streets of Queen's Berth, running the feather under his own chin thoughtfully.

“Sometimes I just wanna throw a rock and see if I can hit the inside of his mouth,” he says at length, watching the shouting priest who gives praise to Eothas for approximately twelve hours a day every single day.

“Like that time you spat into that orlan's mouth at the tavern?” Eder asks, sitting down beside him.

Caedrus grins. “Oh man, I was like two feet away from him, too. That was  _ totally _ a five point shot.”

“And then Durance elbowed that other guy so hard in the face that I thought his teeth were gonna come out the back of his head. I didn't even know he liked Kana that much.”

Caedrus laughs a little haltingly and looks away from all of them. “Yeah,” he croaks.

A little silence, then Eder sighs. “Caedrus—”

“Don't say it, man.”

“I'm  _ gonna _ keep saying it. You're whoring yourself out to practically everyone here, and letting people walk all over you. When you  _ should _ be chasing Eothas.”

“I need coin.”

“You've  _ got _ coin. You're makin' excuses.” 

“Fine! Then I'm fucking  _ scared _ , alright?” he snarls suddenly, and practically jumps to his feet to glare down at Eder. “I'm fucking scared to go after that asshole. How the Hel am I even supposed to…?” he throws his arms into the air in a frustrated gesture and doesn't continue. 

They all stare at him.

“Whatever,” he finally growls, and runs a hand over his face aggressively. “Forget it. Forget I said anything. Look, let's just go find this kid, alright?”

“When are you going to the palace?” Eder demands, not moving an inch.

“Two days,” Caedrus says weakly, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Give me two days.”

Eder looks at him for a while, expression unreadable. “Fine. Let's go.”

A strange energy settles over them as they make their way to the guard towers; on edge and no longer carefree. Caedrus looks hollow. Aloth eyes him out of the corner of his eye. He doesn't know what to think about him being afraid to go after Eothas. A part of him says that it is overwhelmingly a  _ practical _ fear to have. For obvious reasons. The other part says that regardless Caedrus’s personal feelings, this is his duty. This is his duty to himself and to the world and to the Gods. A lot more is at stake here than last time. Eothas is not a secretive and shadowy organization can afford to bide it's time to perform its manipulations. Eothas is literally walking through the ocean and speaking in semi-threatening riddles about ‘something beautiful coming’. Not even the Gods know what the Hel he’s doing.

And as for Caedrus’s fear… well, wouldn't the Gods protect him? Surely Berath wouldn't name him her Herald just to lead him by the hand to his death. Surely. Aloth supposed that she  _ could _ just resurrect him if he died. Over and over again. But what if she couldn't, or didn't?

Aloth isn't exactly keen on seeing Caedrus die right in front of his face. And is even less keen to die himself.

They arrive at the watchtowers, climbing the long, skinny stone staircase in front of the Vailian Trading Company building until they're atop the rampart. To the west, a long bridge extends to connect two parts of the bulwark—and to the north, it's a dead end where the wall stops. In the shade thrown by the guard tower, a young man sits with his back against the stone. The sound of lute music tickles playfully underneath the sound of the nearby cobbler plying his wares and the happy shrieks of children playing in the distance. 

Caedrus looks at the kid for a short while, mouth pursed as though tasting something sour. 

“I'd best do this alone,” he decides, turning to them. “He'll get suspicious if all of us go up to him in a group, dressed in armor and weapons and asking about his family feud.”

“Agreed,” Aloth says, a little surprised that Caedrus had even thought of such a thing. 

“We'll wait at the tavern, then,” Eder tells him. “No use hangin’ ‘round up here.”

The two of them look at each other for a second. Caedrus slowly nods, mouth quirking into a hesitant smile, and Eder nods back. Caedrus smiles wider, squeezes his shoulder once, and goes. 

At the tavern, Eder buys them all a round and they sit at one of the tables near the door. It is about nine in the morning, and business is as slow as it will get for the rest of the day; just a few miserable-looking and unwashed patrons milling about in the dark corners of the tavern, looking like they'd been there all night. Eder finishes his drink and strikes up his pipe, looking contemplative and bothered. 

Caedrus comes through the door before Aloth can ask after Eder's inner thoughts. He drops into the chair beside Aloth and nabs his untouched tankard as though it belongs to him. Aloth doesn't protest.

“Well?” Aloth says when he has taken a long slug of the ale and not said anything.

“Nothing in this damn town is easy,” Caedrus grumbles. “Apparently, we'll have to chase the entire Valera extended family to get the full story of what the hell is even going on.”

“Why not just get it straight from the horse's mouth?” Eder suggests. “Their estate is like right there.”

“Oh sure, I'll just walk in and ask Papa Valera ‘hey, you plotting to kill your next door neighbors?’”

“‘Well, why do you wanna know?’” Eder picks up their old game almost automatically. 

Caedrus grins at him. “‘Oh, gee, sir, no reason. Just wanna get good seats for the spectacle. When did you say you were gonna do it again? And, ah, how many people are gonna be involved?’” 

They both start chuckling. Aloth rolls his eyes.

“And what if his reasons for plotting are justifiable?” he asks sharply. Caedrus raises an eyebrow at him and Aloth continues, sitting forward a little. “Far be it from me to judge, but Ezzali Bardatto did not strike me as a fair or kind person. A business woman first and last, who has refused to stop this feud even after her son was almost killed.”

“Aye. Had a little ‘I'm conning to crushing the competition beneath my boots’ ta her,” Searfen says. He's grinning as though he finds that agreeable. 

“Yes,” Aloth says dryly. “What he said.  _ Whatever _ he said. All I'm suggesting is that if you want to get yourself, and us, involved in some sort of family blood feud then it would be prudent to know the reasonings of both parties involved.”

Caedrus's busy fingers go drumming against the edge of the table and his top lip disappears into his mouth. A sure sign of his thinking.

“Good point,” he finally says. “ _ Really _ good point.”

Aloth tries not to preen.

“I'll be honest and say that I was just looking to earn some quick coin by running a few errands,” Caedrus admits, pursing his lips. “But I guess if I get myself involved at all, I'll get involved all the way.” 

“And who even knows what you'll find out about this ‘plot’ if you go digging.” Aloth tries to keep his voice steady and reasonable. It wasn't often that Caedrus listened to him, and so it wasn't often that he had the power to sway his decision like this. “They may be plotting to attack tonight, and then it would be too late to dissuade them—and you'd have to fight for the Bardatto family.”

“I'm not going to be  _ fighting _ for either of them, “ Caedrus says seriously. “I'm not going to take part in extinguishing an entire family unless someone is paying me a ridiculous amount of money. Like the type of money that comes with killing monarchs.” His face becomes grim. “There's  _ children _ in both those households.”

“You could just lock them all into a room ‘till they play nice,” Eder suggests. 

“They'd be more apt to kill each other than talk about their feelings,” Aloth says.

“Not if I'm standing over them demanding they get their shit together,” Caedrus muses. He steeples his fingers and lays them on his lap, tilting the chair that he sits in on its back two legs. “There may be a way that no one has to die. I  _ could _ get them to play nice.”

Aloth snorts. “That's liable to get us killed, too.”

Caedrus laughs and tucks one of Aloth's bound locks behind his ear. By the time Aloth freezes in surprise at being touched, his hand is already pulling away.

“Oh ye of little faith.” The Watcher's grin is large and toothy. “I do so love proving you wrong, darling.”

* * *

 

The interior of the Valera estate is markedly shabbier than that of the Bardatto estate, but also notably homier. Aloth wonders if it was made to be an antithesis, almost, to the loftiness of wealth. Instead of sculptures, the walls are decorated with paintings of sea and land and ships—oil paintings, featuring bold lines and tropical colors. The floor is wooden, not marble, and heavily covered with faded rugs. Atop almost every piece of furniture, there stand clay pots filled with potpourri, and vases with stems of cotton or bright flowers; scale models of ships, books, and other cluttering knickknacks occupy other surfaces. 

Caedrus goes snooping, poking his head into various rooms even though they are told by the steward where they might find the master of the house, one Atello Valera.

(Sometimes, Caedrus reminds Aloth of a cat; too curious for his own good, and prone to over familiarizing himself with any space that he ends up in, even if it's somebody else's house.)

The bottom floor of the estate holds little more than the steward's office and a grand dining room with a very long and sturdy-looking dining table fit for twelve. The remains of breakfast have yet to be cleared off, and most servants loaf around, going about their tasking in a relaxed manner. The guards are equally relaxed, some leaning against walls and others flirting with the servants in conspicuous corners. 

Upstairs, the paintings become more varied and numerous, but still with a nautical bent to most of them. The upstairs landing is large and mostly bare except for the paintings and a very shabby rug. Caedrus takes an inordinate amount of time studying some of the paintings and pots, and Aloth is annoyed with his preoccupation until he notices the edges of conversational gossip happening around them like the scuttling of rats in dark corners. Then he understands.

“...Bardatto guards are on the take. Making money hand over fist…”

“Martino's been more  _ prickly _ lately…”

“...with Orso strutting around like a peacock after his duel…”

Caedrus steps away from the paintings and walks casually towards the servant's table where three young women are whispering and giggling to themselves under the pretense of cleaning off the breakfast remains.

He says something in Vailian to them, charmingly and flirtatiously, and makes them huddle into a tight group, flustered and giggling at him. He says something else, and the girl in the middle responds. Caedrus favors them with a grin and strides away. 

They turn the corner and he knocks against the first closed door on their right; three solid, confident raps that breaks through the voices on the other side that seem to be arguing heatedly. 

“Ah... enter, enter.” A man’s voice shakily calls out from inside.

Caedrus does. 

Atello Valera is a tall, wiry man with dark skin and a face that doesn't hide his age. His skin is heavily lined and has the appearance of leather in the flickering candlelight. Regardless, he wears colors that compliment him: a surcoat of olive green, with a tan ascot pinned precisely over his throat. At his side stands a shorter, stockier, heavily built man of darker complexion, dressed and armed like a guard in fine leather armor. A pistol is strapped to one hip and a rapier hangs at the other.

Both men stare at Caedrus with furrowed brows for a few seconds after his entrance. Caedrus pays them little mind, looking about the office as if it is more important than they are.

“Forgive me, my lords, the interruption,” he finally says, bowing.

“That's… quite alright,” Atello Valera says. He glances at the man next to him. “My son and I were just  _ finishing _ our discussion.”

“Caedrus Oínaeyt, at your service.”

Atello inclines his head, relaxing visibly. He places a hand on his own chest. “Atello Valera. And, my eldest son, Martino.” He gestures to the man at his side. 

Martino Valera crosses his arms over his chest and glares at all of them. 

Caedrus bows again. “Forgive the... stochasticity of my visit, my lords, but I witnessed your son dueling behind the falls last night, and I wanted to ask after him.”

“He's fine,” Martino says shortly. “He won, did he not?”

“He almost  _ killed _ the other boy,” Caedrus says softly. “And I suppose now I see the source of such influence.”

Martino's eyes widen. “You dare—!”

“Enough,” Atello orders. “You kept the boys from the Beyond, and I am grateful. We could… use such a mediator now.”

“Oh, more than you know, my lord.” Caedrus steps forward. “I recently came under the employment of one Ezzali Bardatto. She thinks that you are plotting against her.”

Atello gapes for a second. Then his eyes narrow and his mouth scowls indignantly. “Eccosi? Are you  _ accusing _ me of something?”

“Simply asking, my lord.” Caedrus shrugs. “I believe in honesty being repaid with honesty, and a slight being repaid with a slight.”  _ Swine shit _ , Aloth thinks. “An eye for an eye. So I have come clean about being an agent of your rivals, and I would ask that you in turn tell me if I should be getting front row seats to a family massacre in the next few weeks.”

“A massacre…?” Atello stared at Caedrus incredulously. “I would  _ never _ .”

Caedrus says nothing for a long while, studying him. 

“Well, even if  _ you _ won't, Ezzali would. At the slightest provocation. And I do not think I need to tell you that.” 

“I'm well aware of her ruthlessness,” Atello says dryly. “But this ‘plot’ that she has imagined is just that—a fantasy. I wouldn't be surprised if she dreamed of it last night, and thought it to be a prophecy when she awoke.” 

Aloth studied the quality of his face, his eyes, and found them open, and the shock and dismay they displayed legitimate. 

“Then why does your son grin like a fox stuffed with chicken at your side?” Caedrus says boredly. 

“I—” Atello swallows his words suddenly, and slowly turns to his son. Aloth mimics the motion. “...Martino?”

Martino Valera shrugs with the confidence of a man who doesn't fear a thing. “I am always planning  _ something _ , father.”

“Martino!”

“What can I do if Ezzali worries without cause?” He grins. “She knows nothing that can hurt us.”

Caedrus snorts. “And if I was not the honorable man that I am, she would know a lot more, I promise you.” 

“I do not  _ fear _ you, little man.”

Caedrus turns his head back to Atello’s direction. “I come here as an advocate of truce between your families, Atello.”

Martino laughs. “He has jokes, father.”

“If he was joking, you'd definitely know it,” Eder growls. “Why don't you shut up and listen to what he has to say?”

Martino sneers at him, but Atello makes a cutting motion with his hand before the insults can fly more. 

He smiles at Caedrus, almost apologetically. “I appreciate your candor, but I'm afraid the contention between our families is beyond fixing. And if anything, I question your apparent  _ interest _ in our feud.”

“My lord, you are a businessman,” Caedrus says lightly. “You would know if my investment in this situation was false. I could have come to you under the pretense of helping you sabotage them and played double agent, feeding all your information to the Barbattos in turn. One such as I could stand to gain a lot by playing for both sides and feeding the chaos. 

But I have not. I have come to you, very much behind Ezzali’s back, and let you know of my employment by her—and to earnestly appeal to you to stop this feud.”

In the silence that follows, Aloth very nearly holds his breath and wrestles with being impressed. Caedrus had a way of speaking that signaled when he was serious about something—dropping the casual slang and lilting tone of voice for something concise and hard, with a vocabulary that vaunted a formal education. He did not often make grand appeals or speeches, but that did not mean that he was incapable of them. And it was equally hard to not be pleased that Caedrus had taken Aloth's suggestion of peace so deeply to heart as to be putting in this much work into seeing it through.

“I concede,” Atello says, with something resembling a bow. “You have little to gain by peace between our families, but you speak as if you might.” 

“A notable lack of dueling kids in the streets is a start, my lord,” Caedrus says wryly. “Though I fear the gossip mill will run dry without your dramatics.”

“You want to help? Convince Ezzali to negotiate,” Atello demands, ignoring the comment. 

“Should be easy for you, as her little pet,” Martino jeers.

“Until then, leave me be,” Atello continues. “I feel a headache coming on.”

“It'll get worse before it gets better, my lord,” Caedrus says. Aloth doesn't know if he's talking about the headache or their situation. “I will drag the Bardattos here within the hour, and then we can all have a nice long chat.”

* * *

 

All in all, it does not take too much convincing to make Ezzali come to the estate. Aloth thinks that perhaps she does it to humor Caedrus, or get into the same room as the entire Valera clan so as to kill them away from the public eye. 

Whatever the reason, it certainly doesn't register when the four of them stride back into the Valera estate almost exactly an hour later to see the guards and servants on edge and alight with whispers of a more worried kind than an hour ago. 

It makes Aloth wary, makes him tense his spine and makes his heart pick up in his chest. He was not joking when he said that the two families together in the same room and armed to the teeth (as they undoubtedly are) is bound to end in a lot of bloodshed unless Caedrus can walk a very fine line. 

Caedrus leads them to the dining hall as if the weight of such thoughts are not even a blemish on his clothes. Aloth admires the confidence as much as he resents it, as much as it makes him nervous. 

In the dining hall, the air is approximately twenty degrees cooler than the rest of the house from the force of the frigid silence that the Valeras and Bardattos exist in. Both heads of the families sit at either end of the long table, the rest stand around them in a lose huddle. There are lots of crossed arms and scowls and narrowed eyes.

Caedrus grabs one of the decorative plush chairs that stand against the wall and puts it smack dab before the middle of the table, sitting himself down as if he too is the head of a family.

For a long moment there is only a tense silence that vibrates and sizzles. Aloth feels the hair on the back of his neck stand on end from the force of negative emotion that permeates the room. 

Caedrus laces his fingers together loosely and places his joined hands on the tabletop. He carries an easy slope of shoulder and arch of back; one that suggests that he is the only one who actually wants to be there.

“If we could open by defining your grievances and demands…” he says lightly, his voice shattering the silence at last. 

Atello Valera uncurls one of his arms from their tight fold across his chest and points an accusing finger all the way down the length of the dining table to rest upon Ezzali Bardatto.

“You run your bank like a crime syndicate! Some of us struggle to tell the difference.”

Ezzali snorts. “We can take it up with the director, if you would like. But then you'd have to explain why your children are intimidating my merchants.” She lays both hands palms up on the tabletop. “Do you see, Watcher?” She says, as if this little bit of bullheaded conversation is exactly why she thinks these talks will fail.

“Well unless one of you is going to pay me a fortune to kill the other, we might as well negotiate, Ezzali,” Caedrus tells her patiently.

“Is the other option still on the table?” Martino Valera asks.

Caedrus smiles indulgently at him. “Assassinations are  _ always _ on the table. You'd have to draw up a blood contract with the Artists of Eora, first, though. A tedious process, I assure you.” His smile morphs into a smirk. “And I promise: you'll not be able to afford me.”

“The… Artists?” Martino sounds skeptical.

“ _ Indeed _ .” Caedrus smiles toothily at him.

Artello sighs. “Quiet, Martino. Watcher, I believe now would be a good time to lay out your reasoning.”

Caedrus leans back in his seat, passing his eyes over the room like a king would over his domain. 

“I've made allies of enemies before,” he finally says. “So I think we can all pull together into a stronger force with my guidance.”

“A force, Watcher?” Ezzali scoffs. “To what end? As far as I'm concerned, I  _ can _ afford your blood contract.” She smiles at Atello.

“A force for the only end there is, Ezzali,” Caedrus purrs, sitting forward suddenly. “ _ Profit _ .” He lets it hover there for a second, between them, then sits back again. “I'll be getting mine either way.”

“I see you've spent too much time in the Bardatto's company, Watcher.” Atello shakes his head and throws a hand into the air sharply. 

No, Aloth thinks dryly, Caedrus's greediness is all his own.

“And what's  _ your _ goal, Atello?” Caedrus asks him simply. “You let your children run wild picking fights and lashing out at the Bardattos.”

“My goal? To wring out a little respect from this feud before we go under!” He slams both of his palms down onto the table. Aloth jumps and stiffens at the sudden noise.

“The company will bleed us dry, Watcher,” he pleads. “We give our lives, our loved one's lives, and they don't lift a  _ finger _ to help us. The Bardattos turn their backs,” he spits and places a hand over his chest. “Why shouldn't I teach my children to walk with their heads held high, and take no bullshit from those who give it to them?”

There was something to be said about losing everything but keeping your dignity, Aloth thinks. Empires of fortune were worth very little if you had to sacrifice your own pride and morals to acquire them. 

Perhaps that was why he was not a company man.

Caedrus doesn't respond for a long time, deeply in thought and gnawing on his top lip. Eventually, he sits forward and laces his fingers together again.

“When I was a boy, during my training in the Academy, I had a rival,” he begins speaking with rare calmness, almost pensive in his tone. “Tamond Baldric. He was popular, and older, stronger, quicker, more handsome. But he was also little more than that. I quickly overcame him in my studies, and I let my determination to beat him drive me forward, to wake up every morning and be the first one in the practice field, and the last to leave it. And eventually, he and I were forced to go against one another in the Blade Rite—and I beat him so soundly that he disappeared the next morning, and was never heard from again.” Caedrus shakes his head and shrugs. “And that's my point. You're distracting yourselves from what's important. A good rivalry can be a powerful thing, a driving force that lets you accomplish things you did not know were possible. A  _ good _ rivalry can do that. One that requires restraint and internal self motivation. Atello, by allowing your kids to run free the way you are, by striking at your opponents in underhanded ways, you're showing that you have no restraint and no respect for yourself. You're showing that you're a sore loser.” 

Yes, Aloth thinks sarcastically,  _ insult _ the man you're supposed to be winning over. 

“So what's  _ your _ solution?” Martino snorts. “We square off against each other on a field?”

His hand goes to his sword. “Because I am more than ready to defend my father's supposed lack of honor.”

“Put your sword away, kiddo,” Eder says boredly. “The adults are talking.” 

A snicker of laughter comes from the Bardatto side. Aloth throws Eder a reprimanding look. He's a little surprised that Caedrus has handled the negotiations so decently this far, and looks to continue not letting the mood in the room boil over. He's not too fond of the idea of both the Bardattos and Valeras choosing their hatred of  _ them _ as their common goal.

“Forgive my son's inclination to seek out easy solutions,” Atello apologizes. “Platitudes have a way of arousing his ire—a trait that runs in the family.” He gives Caedrus an unimpressed once-over.

Caedrus ignores him. “Ezzali, why cut the Valera family out of the trade?”

“One does not arm the competition. Besides, lesser people have made more of themselves without the aid of banks.”

“Oh?” Caedrus croons. “Like  _ you _ ?”

She doesn't respond save for a muscle jumping in her jaw. Aloth winces at their impending doom, and then sees Caedrus's strategy clearly. Putting himself seemingly in one's corner, then flipping and pointing out their wrongs in just as humiliating of a dressing down. It's rather stupid, Aloth thinks, but Caedrus has an annoying habit of blundering his way to success. He has charm aplenty, but never seems to want to use it for these types of negotiations.

Caedrus rises from his seat and goes to the liquor cabinet in the meantime. He splashes wine into a crystal glass and returns to the table, but not back to his chair, instead standing over the middle of the table and sipping from his glass idily. 

“Tell me about the pirates.”

“Vagabonds, and beneath my notice,” Ezzali immediately says. “The only thing I'll say about Atello is that at least he is a son of the Republics. I'll treat with him like any enemy of note.”

“I'm surprised you can say that with a straight face, Ezzali,” Atello responds saccharinely.

“ _ ENOUGH _ ,” Caedrus bellows, driving the Bleak Fang deeply into the center of the table. Aloth blinks at the action as everyone falls still and silent around them. Deep slits appear in the table, spider webbing from the embedded stiletto. They're lined with frost. Out of the corner of Aloth's eyes, he sees the impression of humanoid shapes, thin and see-through like they're made of mist. 

Caedrus looks like a rabid dog, lips fully pulled back from his wine-stained teeth, the skin and muscle of his nose and his brows wrinkly from the force of his snarl, his eyes lethal green slits that roll from one side of the table to another. Where they land, gazes shy away.

“Enough,” he says again, with frigid calmness. “I think you have forgotten who I am and what I am capable of. I went out of my way to get us here, and you are wasting my time talking in circles. Now  _ state your terms _ , or I will kill every single one of you and take my payment from  _ both _ your coffers.”

_ Oh Gods _ , Aloth thinks,  _ so this is where we will die _ . 

He cannot admit to being intimidated by Caedrus's little temper tantrum, and doubts that anyone around the table is, either. In his experience, people that are as chock full of pride and prone to violence as the Valeras and Bardattos are need only the  _ suggestion _ of things not going their way in order to throw down.

He waits for the levee to break with his weapon freely in hand now, but no one makes a move or says a word. Caedrus yanks the Bleak Fang out of the table and takes to flipping it in the air and catching it, the way that a cat would twist its tail when displeased. Aloth knows without a doubt that Caedrus will slaughter the entire room as he has promised, but they are four against eleven, and those are not odds Aloth likes. 

The silence stays, visceral and tense. Caedrus drains the rest of his wine and walks back to take his seat again, and still no one says anything.

Finally, Atello Valera sighs. “We  _ do _ appreciate your hand in this, good Watcher, but as I said, it's not as if we—”

Ezzali raises a hand and he falls silent. Slowly, with a muted groan of her chair, she sits forward.

“I want the Principi out of the trade lanes,” she says gravely. She looks to the side as she speaks, unable to meet Atello’s eyes.

“W-what?”

“The Watcher told us to state our terms, and so I am. Half of this month's shipments are missing. I'll give you coin and crew for five ships to earn back my investment.”

Atello gapes at her for a second, then scrambles to sit up straighter. “Six ships. With six, I will drive the Principi from these waters like rats from a fire.”

Serafen grumbles something that the ringing in Aloth's ears doesn't allow him to hear. 

They might actually survive this encounter, he keeps thinking dazedly. They might actually walk from here without a scratch.

“You think yourself the first to underestimate us, little one?” Atello chuckles at Serafen, a sound that is more relief than arrogance.

“Six ships, then,” Ezzali says. A short pause. “I do believe we just made a deal, Valera.”

“Then… it's settled?” Atello sounds bewildered by his own words.

“It seems so. Time will tell if this arrangement is a favorable one.” She rises. “My hosts will excuse me if I return home.”

Atello nods his head a tad dumbly, and she pursues her lips and inclines her head in an almost bow-like motion towards Caedrus.

The Bardattos file out, and Aloth is able to breathe easily once again. 

The Valeras stay in a cluster at the left head of the table, seemingly unsure of what to do with themselves. Caedrus rises and goes back to the liquor cabinet. Glass clinks and liquid pours, and he comes back with two trays of wine glasses which he balances on both hands easily. 

“I think we all deserve a drink after that,” he says cheerfully. “You have an excellent vintage, Atello. The one in the Bardatto liquor cabinet doesn't have nearly the flavor, trust me.”

* * *

 

“That was a damned stupid thing to do,” Aloth snaps, several hours later and after a truly grand victory dinner at the Valera estate. “You're lucky they listened to you. For  _ whatever _ reason they listened to you.”

“Turned out  _ fiiiine _ .” Caedrus's eyes are hazily and wandering with alcohol. Aloth had lost track of how many glasses he had at dinner. And before dinner. And after it. Irresponsible lout. 

“I had it under control.” He suddenly grabs Aloth, slinging an arm around his shoulders and leaning heavily into his side. “I love it when you disapprove of me,” he murmurs into Aloth's ear, hot breath falling onto his skin, soft lips brushing just against the shell of his ear.

Aloth thinks about shoving him away, but he's practically dragging the Watcher along, now; Caedrus's motor functions are entirely gone or at least uninteresting in participating.

“The wine is getting to your head,” Aloth grumbles through his teeth.

“ _ You _ get to my head,” Caedrus says hoarsely. “I can't get you out.  _ Aloth _ —”

“Alright, c'mon, you lush,” Eder says loudly and puts both hands on Caedrus's shoulders to stabilize him and march him up ahead. “Aloth can't support your entire weight, you know. Fatass.”

Caedrus's arm slips from around Aloth shoulder as he verbally defends his body type. Aloth stops walking entirely until the two of them are several steps ahead of him.

Serafen chuckles and falls into step with him when he resumes walking. 

“Should check yourself for sucker-hickeys, there.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Don't gotta beg me nothin’. Got yourself a real cephalopod there.” He jerks his chin at the stumbling outline of Caedrus in front of them. He was singing one of the sea shanties at the top of his lungs, horribly off-key, and in incorrect order. “Pity. Thought the cap had better taste.”

“Searfen,” Aloth begins sweetly. “It's been a long night. So I kindly suggest you leave me be unless you want to lose all that pretty blue fur in a tragic fire accident.”

Serafen blinks up at him, and then throws his head back and laughs. “Oh,” he gasps. “I  _ like _ you. You've got some bite to you.”

“I  _ will _ set you on fire.”

The orlan raises his hands into the air, palms up. “Heh, loud an’ clear, mate. Loud an' clear.”

* * *

 

Caedrus is 75, which is the equivalent to anywhere between 25 to 37 years old in puny little human years. I tend to think of him as 27 or 28. It's hard when elves in the PoE universe can live anywhere from 200-310 years. Like do I divide their ages by two or by three to get their human equivalents? It really depends on when they die, so I guess this means that Caedrus is gonna die anywhere between 260-270 years old. I wouldn't even know what to do with myself if I had that long to live.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew. That was a bitch and a half. Only lightly edited, cause I didn't want to look at it anymore after I was done writing it. I'll give it a comb through at a later date.


	8. Reluctance

_n. unwillingness or disinclination to do something._

* * *

 

“This is… a lot,” Aloth says, eyes straying down and down the page as he follows the list of spells, his mouth pursing more with every one that he reads.

He doesn't know how Caedrus has written the list this fast, or where he has even gotten the information about some of these spells. A few are pretty powerful, and not the type that you could find in any common textbook.

“And here I thought you'd be up for the challenge.”

Caedrus is sitting at his desk, preoccupied with writing something in his journal. He has barely spared Aloth a glance since he handed him the list. He seems refreshed and not at all hung over from his indulgence the night before. He had announced at breakfast that today would be a dominicus, and then requested for Aloth to meet him in his cabin on the hour to begin their magic lessons. So much for ‘only at night and for an hour or two’.

Aloth looks back down at the scroll before Caedrus can sense his staring.

Mostly, they are illusion and transmutation spells, with a couple of conjuration and enchanting ones thrown in. All his illusion spells are distraction spells, like Arkemyr’s Dazzling Lights and Mirrored Image. He seems to favor the idea of doubles and triples of himself running around. No surprise there.

Both of his requested enchantment spells have to do with speed—Fleet Feet and Deleterious Alacrity of Motion. A bit of a dangerous one, the latter, but incredibly useful in small bursts.

The rest are elemental, and they're all frost spells. Notably, Caedrus seems to be a fan of Ninagauth, and has both his Bitter Mooring and Freezing Pillar spells on his request list. Though, thankfully, not his Killing Bolt spell, or else Caedrus really _would_ be pulling from every single school of magic.

“You know, most wizards spend their entire lives dedicated to only one or two schools of magic,” Aloth says dryly. “Or a singular element, like fire or acid.”

“Or one concept, like missile spells?” Caedrus asks with humor. He looks up from his journal and raises an eyebrow at Aloth when he doesn't deem that a response. “Good thing I'm not a _wizard_ then, isn't it?” he mocks, throwing Aloth's words right back to him.

Aloth frowns. Had he been offended, or something, by them?

He drops onto the corner of Caedrus's unmade bed, looking back down at the parchment in his hands and shaking his head. “Yes. And a good thing that we will both live at least two hundred years, what with everything you want me to teach you.”

“If Eothas doesn't kill me a second time,” Caedrus agrees casually.

Aloth looks up at him and narrows his eyes. “Stop that.”

Caedrus spins in his seat suddenly and tilts his head at him. “Why do you and Eder hate to hear me say that so much?” he asks with genuine curiosity. Aloth stares at him. He can't tell if Caedrus is fishing for something with the question. It should be obvious why Aloth and Eder cannot stand to hear him announce his own death in such a sure, casual tone.

“Do you really have such faith in my martial prowess as to be able to kill that… thing?” Caedrus asks when Aloth doesn't respond for a second too long.

Aloth snorts and shakes his head. “I just don't think that it has to devolve to you verses him,” he says truthfully. “Surely the Gods don't want you to _fight_ him.”

Now Caedrus snorts. “It's the _Gods_ , Aloth. They love getting mortals to do their dirty work for them. Who was it that built and used the Godhammer last time? That's right: mortals. They had to kill an actual God, had to witness themselves kill a God, had to die for it, and then Margran wouldn't even...” he trails off and gestures. “And Durance _killed himself_ over it, you know? And that bitch doesn't even care.”

Aloth opens his mouth and closes it again. Durance had…? This is the first he has heard of this. Beneath the numbing shock, he feels a pang in his chest, surprising him.

“I… didn't know,” he murmurs.

“Yeah. Well.” Caedrus moves his shoulders in a shrug, but slowly, as though he is shrugging off a mountain. “He and I had quite the debate going on through our letters. Threads of maybes and might-have-beens, just little things he would say now and again. I figured it out too late; it was always hard to decipher what he was actually trying to say under all the posturing and preaching, but… yeah.”

They're silent for a long time. Aloth is unsure of what to say. Consoling people doesn't come naturally to him. He has never lost anyone, really, and doesn't know the pain associated with it.

He didn't even think that Caedrus liked Durance all that much, except as a source of entertainment with his uncouth and expletive-filled rants against his Goddess.

But Caedrus clearly mourns him still.

“Well, regardless of your feelings about the Gods, I don't think Berath would waste her investment like this,” Aloth argues a little lamely. “She wouldn't bring you back from the dead just to send you to your death.”

“More like ‘wouldn't yet cut the strings on her puppet’,” Caedrus mutters bitterly. A pause. “I hate them all, you know?”

He says it almost conversationally, as though _They_ aren't watching this very moment and don't have the power to simply smite him from this world.

“Yes, I do know,” Aloth says, wincing at the thought that They _are_ watching. He himself has never been that religious, but he pays Them the respect he pays any authority figure.

Caedrus is probably bating Them, besides. Relishing in the opportunity to do so as long as he's protected by Berath. It's the exact sort of thing he _would_ do. Idiot.

Aloth certainly doesn't want to be any sort of accomplice.

“Anyway,” he says pointedly. “I figure we should tackle illusions first, since you have the most on this list.”

“Eating the frog,” Caedrus says, in something like agreement. Aloth looks at him in puzzlement and he shrugs. “Something one of my Masters at the Academy used to say. The concept of tackling the biggest project first.”

“Ah.” But why _name_ it that? Guh.

...Now he's _imagining_ it.

“I really wish I hadn't gotten rid of my text books,” Aloth murmurs. Illusion is not a school he favors all that much. He has a few in his arsenal, but they truly are a class more useful for distraction. To get himself out of melee and redirect the attention onto _Eder_ , thank you.

He supposes that it could make melee easier for the caster. It's hard to think in the way a melee fighter would think, but… Caedrus has actually put quite a lot of thought into his spell choices.

Aloth looks the scroll over in a new light. He still doesn't understand the ice fixation but… to each his own, he supposed. Fire was much more deadly and easier to cast.

“Didn't I already see you use Kalakoth's Sunless Grasp?” he asks suspiciously, looking up.

Caedrus rolls his eyes. “I guess? It just kinda happens from time to time. I have no control over it, and I'd actually _like_ to have control over it.”

“So you don't actually know how to cast it?”

“Why would I put it onto the list if I knew how to cast it?”

“You cast it last night, through a _stiletto_.”

Caedrus shrugs and Aloth purses his mouth.

Scratch the ‘why frost’, then. Maybe the element was just Caedrus's natural one. Though he said he cast fire when he was a boy. Usually, the element or school of magic that one casts in childhood when one's magic awakens is the one thought to be the easiest to ‘reach’, so to speak. No one knows why that is, or what plays into it, but it's usually the easiest to master later on, too.

He tells Caedrus this, and gets another shrug for his troubles.

“Probably has something to do with me being glamfellen.”

“That has nothing to do with it,” Aloth argues. “There's been no proven correlation between a particular race, birthplace, or circumstance, and the mastery of an element. Magic comes from the soul.”

“Well… I mean, Rymrgand _preserved_ our souls. My soul has always been glamfellen, and will always _be_ glamfellen,” he says it calmly, but then his face twists like he's eaten a lemon and reveals his true feelings on the subject.

“I… suppose.” Aloth lets the topic go, much as he wants to debate some more. It's one of the things he misses most about the animancers. Caedrus always has a bit of a rowdy bunch dogging his heels, one not prone to deliberation or intellectual discussion.

“Well, since you already have a grasp on that spell somewhat, I suppose we should begin with it.”

Hah. _Grasp_.

“Not illusions?” Caedrus asks, tilting his head to the side.

“No, I've changed my mind,” Aloth says, and then debates with himself if he should tell him why it makes logical and magical sense. Would Caedrus even care?

Probably not.

Caedrus takes this in stride, shrugging as if it truly doesn't matter to him either way.

“Where would you like me?” he asks readily. “How would you like me?”

Aloth narrows his eyes a little, looking at him. Was that an insinuation?

Caedrus looks back at him with a raised brow. “Aloth?”

“Sitting in front of me,” Aloth orders shortly. He needs to stop getting distracted.

Caedrus complies, picking up his desk chair and moving it in front of the bed that Aloth occupies. When he sits down, their knees bump against each other.

“Lay your hands atop mine.”

Caedrus does, lightly. His skin is surprisingly cool, his hands a bit clammy. His palms are slinder, his fingers long and thin. Weapon calluses make his skin tough and scratchy in places. Aloth meets his eyes and expects a flirty smirk, but Caedrus's face is composed and serious staring back at him.

“Sunless Grasp is actually a conjuration spell. I think most of the other frost spells on your list are transmutation ones. Transmutation being the school of manipulation—as in turning one thing into another, changing the properties and basic make-up of objects and creatures to make an effect entirely different.”

“Turning the water in the air to frost,” Caedrus says with a nod.

“That's… yes. Precisely.” He knows he sounds surprised at Caedrus's quick catching on. He wonders if he's telling Caedrus information that he already knows from the books and his other wizards, but he's not about to ask.

“Conjuration, on the other hand, is the creation or teleportation of something. Many of them make offensive attacks to harm others. There's also a degree of tool use involved. Transmutation is a bit hard to do by just waving your hands around. That's why we use tools of application and focusing—like the scepter, rod, or wand. Specifically designed to interact with magic.”

“So me casting through a stiletto was weird?”

“You probably didn't actually cast _through_ it. You can cast conjurations, simple ones like Sunless Grasp, with your bare hands. Which was what I was getting to.”

“So I'm just calling ice forth.”

“Yes.”

Caedrus narrows his eyebrows together. “So why is it not a transmutation spell that changes the moisture of my skin to frost?”

“Because then all the moisture in your body would freeze and kill you—and one's own magic cannot hurt the user unless specifically designed to.” He shakes his head at his own phrasing. Difficult to put into layman's terms. “It doesn't matter anyway. The schools of magic are a little overlapping and the grouping sometimes doesn't make sense unless you get into the quiddities of it. Don't think too much on it.”

“Sure.” Caedrus smiles at him with faint amusement.

“Now then, are you ready to try it?”

“What do I do?”

“Call ice forth,” Aloth says simply. “Imagine it in your head, imagine it forming, and force it outward and into existence.”

Caedrus's eyes search his face. “Will it hurt you?”

“Only for a second, perhaps, but I will counter it.” Easily, he calls fire to his palms. Caedrus jerks his hands away with a yelp. “See?”

Caedrus glares at him and Aloth tries not to smirk.

“Yeah, alright.”

Tentatively, he places his hands back onto Aloth's and closes his eyes.

Three seconds later, Aloth feels a ripple in the air, and then the sharp, painful, piercing cold seizing his palms. He watches the ice bloom in sharp translucent vines up his arms and tries not to panic at how his skin turns blue.

 _Powerful_.

He calls fire forth and counters it.

“Very good,” he says. His voice sounds breathless to his ears. “You're… very strong.”

“A question.” Caedrus opens his eyes and looks at him. “If magic comes from the soul, does that mean that I am siphoning power from the souls that are following me?”

“I don't know.” Aloth blinks, and then rubs at the back of his neck. A fascinating question, to be sure. “I don't think it has ever been studied. Watchers are too rare. It's a possibility, thought as far as we know, magic comes just from the individual soul. But… it would certainly explain why you're this powerful with only half a soul in you.” He says this last part as a joke, but then feels the question grip him. How much of a soul would it really take to have a functioning person, anyway? If mere fragments could reanimate something and make it follow simple commands, and if Caedrus seems no worse for ware with only half a soul, then...

“You know, surprisingly, I feel no different with only half a soul.” Caedrus lets go of his hands, smiles at him.

“You probably won't realize the difference until you're whole once again,” Aloth mutters, distracted. Their eyes meet and stay joined for a second, until Aloth shifts in his seat and looks away. “Anyway, let's try again. Practice makes perfect, and all that.”

Caedrus chuckles a little. “Indeed.”

* * *

“That was good,” Aloth says, breathing heavily almost an hour later. “Very good. You're picking up quickly.”

“Just the one spell that I already had half-mastered,” Caedrus says dryly. His smile is pleased and arrogant, however, despite the relative humility of his words. Aloth rolls his eyes but doesn't comment.

In truth, Caedrus has worn him out: his attacks gradually increasing in power and speed the more he cast, until Aloth had a hard time battling them back with his own. He is powerful indeed.

Of course he is.

Well, be that as it may, Aloth is pleased to see that Caedrus is in worse shape than him. Sweat stands on his top lip and nose in neat little beads. As to be expected for a first time caster, even of such a simple spell. He's not breathing heavily, but Aloth attributes it simply to him being in better shape.

“Make sure you fuel your body. Eat, drink,” Aloth instructs him. “Water, preferably. Casting repeatedly for such a long period of time takes a lot of energy.”

“I think I have a headache coming on,” Caedrus whines.

“Like I said.”

“Have lunch with me.”

Aloth freezes, distracted from his internal debate of how to make the cleanest and quickest parting from Caedrus's cabin.

“What?”

“Have… lunch… with… me,” Caedrus repeats with exaggerated slowness, mirth tugging on the words.

“That's…” _a nice offer, but I'd rather be anywhere else, honestly_.

Caedrus smirks at him as if he had heard the thought. He stands and goes to the door, opening it. He keeps his upper body sticking outside of it for a long moment, talking to someone, undoubtedly, though Aloth cannot hear the conversation. Then he closes the door again and goes back to sit at his small table. Aloth realizes that he is still sitting on Caedrus's bed as though its his own. The speed at which he jumps up from it is slightly humiliating, as is the snort he receives from Caedrus.

“I… really shouldn't impose on you in this way. You need your rest,” he says. Caedrus watches him, his eyes focused not on his face but somewhere below his chest. It takes several seconds before Aloth realizes that he is watching him plucking and rubbing nervously at his sash. Something he stops doing immediately.

Caedrus's eyes stray back up to his face, taking his time, roaming.

“Can you really not stand to be in the same room with me this much?” he asks. He sounds like he's simply curious, and not trying to trap Aloth into spewing an insult.

“It's not that,” Aloth half-lies. More like, it's not _only_ that, and it's not _only_ Caedrus. He wouldn't choose to have a one-on-one meal with Eder, either. Having a meal in the same general area required a certain degree of obligatory conversation to be shared, something he was not good for most days.

“Well, if it's not that, then what is it?”

Aloth sighs and looks away from his expectant face.

He doesn't know how to explain that the way that most people did meals was not the way he himself did meals. It made him feel inadequate, somehow, that he preferred silent contemplation over easy conversation. And that he especially did not feel up to it after an hour of being in close quarters with the same person. His wealth of social energy had a bottom.

When he had been a boy, meal times were not times of discussion about his day or the variety of other casual subjects that Eder and Caedrus often blathered about. His memories of family dinners were of quiet, structured affairs. One topic of conversation was introduced and discussed calmly and in depth for the course of the meal, and the meal would last precisely one hour. Like a class, Aloth muses now. A well-organized, well-constructed and well-ordered class—at the end of which he would be firmly dismissed to attend to his other studies.

Right now, everything within him is itching for privacy, solitude, and silence.

“Its nothing,” he lies, because if he actually said it like that Caedrus would judge him. “I suppose I feel a bit tired, myself.”

Caedrus stares calmly at him. “I told them to fix you your tea the way you like it.” He says it as if this will sway Aloth's decision,  as if this is the reason Aloth is turning him down. “Three cubes of sugar, yes?”

Aloth feels the tips of his ears heat up. Yes, three cubes of sugar. Two, whenever asked, to be polite, and then a third sneaked in if he could get away with it, because two didn't make it sweet enough. Of course Caedrus would have noticed, even though Aloth struggles to remember when he had ever even drank tea in front of him.

Seeing no way out of it short of being completely rude, he sits down across from Caedrus. They're as close as they were when practicing, knees once again brushing against each other under the table.

Aloth stares at a point above Caedrus's head. Caedrus has bright, elegant streaks of white in his storm-grey hair—most notably around the temples, and just above the hairline of his widow's peak. There's streaks of black and brown, too, like a wolf's coat transitioning seasons. His eyes are disconcerting this closely, too bright against his chalky skin, too intelligent as they look at him.

He looks down at his own tightly laced fingers on top of the table. Now what?

“I… don't think I ever asked you what you have been up to these last few years,” he begins after a second of mulling it over, and resigns himself to conversation.

Caedrus raises an eyebrow at him. “Are you actually interested, or are you simply making causerie?”

“A little bit of both, I suppose,” Aloth says sharply, glaring at him. “Why do you always ask such things? Can we never have a conversation without implicit hostility?”

“I find our ‘implicitly hostile’ conversations engaging.” Somehow, elegantly, the Watcher crosses one of his legs over the other without slamming it against the table. “There's a rhythm to our back-and-forths. I enjoy it.”

Aloth tsks, but his reply is cut off by a knock on the door. Caedrus rises and steps around the rickety table with the grace of a cat, striding the length of the room as though gliding on water. Aloth watches him open the door and accept the serving tray from one of his sailors, exchanging brief words about the status of the ship before closing the door again.

He crosses back over, and sets the tray down on the table. The tray contains a spread of soft-bread biscuits, with cheese and butter off to the side, and slices of salted pork, all arranged neatly. Caedrus pours the tea for them both and then sits back down across from him. Aloth plunks three sugar cubes into the cup, stirs, and takes a sip. The tea is strong and hot and bitter even through the sweetness.

“If you must know, these last five years I've thrown lots of lavish parties and had lots of orgies,” Caedrus says casually, breaking a biscuit in two with his fingers. Aloth chokes as the tea goes down the wrong way.

He glares up at Caedrus as he coughs and pounds on his own chest with a fist. Caedrus grins at him like a kid, clearly joking.

“That was uncalled for,” Aloth snarls once his airway is cleared.

“On the contrary, getting any sort of reaction from you is _always_ a goal of mine.”

Aloth snorts. “That's childish.”

“But who can resist pushing a button when it's right there? And you have so many of them.” Caedrus butters a hunk of biscuit, puts cheese on both sides of it, and pops it into his mouth.

Aloth rolls his eyes. “Cautious people, who wonder what that button will unleash on them.”

“Trust me, darling, I can handle anything you unleash on me.” Caedrus smiles in a frankly filthy way that almost makes Aloth choke again. After a second, the Watcher shrugs and rips off a chunk of salted pork, chewing thoroughly on it for several seconds before washing it down with a swig of tea. “And anyway, I cannot understand that type of self-restraint or self-denial. The seeing-a-button-and-not-wanting-to-press-it type.”

“You wouldn't,” Aloth says, deadpan. It's about as close to a representation of the type of person Aloth had always thought him to be as any. Childish, he thinks again. Impulsive.

Caedrus chuckles and sits forward. “Then tell me this: why shouldn’t I want to know if you’re attracted to me before I let myself be any more attracted to you? It seems fair.”

Aloth's fingers tighten on his tea cup handle. _This_ nonsense again. “You could save yourself some time, and simply ask me.”

Caedrus grins wickedly at him. “But words of mouth lie. The body doesn't.” He takes another swig of tea. “Like the way you do not meet my eyes for more than a second at a time. And how damp your hands became when we were touching.”

Aloth ignores this. Caedrus is grasping at straws. “Yours were not exactly dry, either.”

Caedrus shrugs. “Because you excite me. That's not a secret. I'm attracted to you.” He pauses, runs his fingers against the rim of his cup, and shrugs. “And magic makes me nervous. That was a part of it, too.”

“Why even have me teach you, then?” Aloth says, latching onto this topic change like a drowning man onto a piece of driftwood.

“Because it's not going away.” Caedrus sighs, brows furrowing as he stares down into his tea. “I thought, for a long time, that it would. Like a language that you don't speak; your brain just forgets it because it doesn't need it anymore. I've mostly forgotten how to speak Ordhjóma, you know.” He shrugs, just a jerk of a shoulder. “I thought if I never used the magic, if I ignored it hard enough, it would just go away. But it's not.”

Aloth frowns. “Why do you even want it to go away? Magic is a gift.”

Caedrus smiles bleakly at him and sits up straighter. “A discussion for another time, I think.”

Of course it is, Aloth thinks sourly and drains his tea in a few quick gulps.

“Then I'm finished,” he announces, standing up before the Watcher can say anything else. “I thank you for your hospitality.”

“Tch. Running away from me already?”

“Yes.” There's no point in lying.

Caedrus chuckles quietly. “Very well, then. Enjoy your day. We go to the palace tomorrow.”

Aloth nods and leaves. Outside the cabin, he leans against the wall and massages his temples to ward against an oncoming headache, something he always seems to get after meetings with Caedrus.

And alright, the training was… not as bad as he thought it was going to be. In fact, it was not _bad_ at all, and as far as pupils went, the Watcher was a surprisingly good one. Caedrus was focused, serious, and interested in the topic. Or so it seemed. Maybe he was playing it up for Aloth's benefit, since he freely admitted to disliking magic.

So that begged the question: was he simply doing it to get close to him?

A rather paranoid thought, Aloth admits. And, if proven incorrect, could be a rather self-absorbed one, too.

He closes his eyes.

It baffles him that Caedrus is sticking to his guns about this supposed attraction of his. Was he bored because he didn't have enough coin for a tavern wench? Was he using it as some odd fancy to pass the time? Was it a joke, a very elaborate one?

He was certainly being stubborn about it, whatever the reason. But in a lazy, almost half-hearted way, like he forgot about keeping up the act most of the time. What was it he had said all those days ago? That he wouldn't seduce or persuade or beg for it? And that Aloth would magically wake up one day and decide to be attracted to him for no reason?

Foolish.

Aloth Corfiser could count the amount of infatuations that he had ever had on one hand. He could remember their names and faces clearly, and could remember exactly what had drawn him towards them. Certain morals and principles that aligned with his own; certain ways of looking at things that challenged him and made him think; a curiosity about the world that manifested as a love of learning.

It had always been a conscious decision on his part.

Caedrus did not have any of those things going for him. Aloth supposed that, physically speaking, he was handsome. But not in an overwhelmingly perfect way that you could not _help_ but be attracted to. And even if he was, physical beauty could only carry one so far without anything else to back it up with. Pure physical attraction was as cheap and thin as it sounded, so he had never fallen victim to it.

What Caedrus did back it up with, when he backed it up with anything, were moments of grand kindness, charity, and righteousness. And no one could deny that he was a good leader and a very charismatic man.

But he was only those things when he wasn't being childish, obnoxious, and flippant.

Aloth pushes off the wall, shaking his head. Then starts to move towards the berth.

Caedrus had pointed Aloth towards a purpose, and thus saved his life. It was hard not to admire and be thankful for all he had done for him. The admiration came with a certain amount of inherent loyalty, perhaps, but it did not translate to attraction or passion.

Perhaps he needs to articulate that better, but he has no idea how he would even go about putting it into words. He has only turned down one person in his entire life, and that was more by way of panicked avoidance than anything else. That will not work this time around, he thinks, for obvious reasons.

* * *

The next morning they set off for the palace.

They are told that the stairwell flanking the Valera and Bardatto estates will lead them deeply into the neighborhood of the climbing city of Neketaka, and that they only need to follow the road upwards, so that is what they do.

The docks give way to houses, practically stacked on top of one another and crammed anywhere there is room, it seems. There's no inherent pattern or plot to the structure of the neighborhood, not like in is in the Empire or even in the Dyrwood. The road is always a hill, and not a gentle one at that. Aloth is reminded of climbing the trees of the outlying jungle in the Cythwood as they traverse winding streets and hundreds of stairs. Ten minutes into the climb, he is panting helplessly and trying to suppress it because he's the only one that is. Twenty minutes into the climb, he's muttering curses and struggling to keep up. Thirty minutes into it, he decides to never, ever live on a mountain, and wishes, in no particular terms, that this mountain would be danced on by Eothas until is it reduced to nothing more than a flat, even pile of dirt.

Finally, the road spits them out in Periki's Overlook, a place of beauty and business that is bustling even in the early morning.

The sights and smells of such a place bring Aloth back, almost painfully, into the markets of the Cythwood. The jolt of nostalgia is so deep and sudden that he has to stop for a second and gather his wits about him lest he do something embarrassing like get teary-eyed.

_Food, he thinks, first of all and foremost. All the farmers of the surrounding lands came into the Cythwood markets to trade their crops, and the main markets were not far from the Gate. Earlyfruit, though that was spoiling this late in the year and filling the air with a kind of sickly sweet scent that probably meant it would be used only as food for the pigs. Magically grown fruit, out of season and so costing a little more than it would at harvest time. Cooked meats that the vendors offered for a cheaper price here than many of the buyers could get anywhere else. Freshly baked bread. Wines that the connoisseurs carefully tasted and nodded over before buying. The burnt sugar smell of magic from the booths where the carefully supervised mages made trinkets for those who wanted them..._

_Cries of vendors shouting their wares. The rumble of wheels and the click of hooves. The quick, sweet chatter of voices speaking Hylspeak and Aedyran, the words liquid and sliding, silvery, a miracle to him after hearing the bumbling, brash voices of Dyrwoodans for so long..._

_The clash of swords from the Guards' compound as he passed it. The sounds of breathing and beating hearts that his sensitive elven ears could hear, but which largely blended into one low hum, so many were there about him…_

“Gods, why didn't anybody _tell_ me about this place?” Caedrus complains, jouncing Aloth back into the present like a strike of electricity.

He blinks back the memories. His throat aches.

Caedrus walks slowly through the streets— making his thus far sullen march into a leisurely stroll. His head is on a swivel, gathering details and whistling appreciations over what he sees.

Periki’s Overlook is the type of place that a much richer Caedrus would have loved to sniff about in. He had an insatiable affinity for shopping, a fact Aloth learned five years ago upon stepping foot into Copperlane with him. Caedrus loved to poke his head into every single shop in Copperlane, regardless of what they sold. He would make a sport of haggling, often doing it for several minutes that built into hours upon hours as he dragged whichever of them accompanying him from shop to shop and vendor to vendor, selling his finds and cooing over anything rare or pretty within the vendors’ stocks.

The peddlers adored him, and Caedrus was often on first-name basis with them, taking them out to taverns after the shops closed down for the night, and later inviting them to ply their wares in Caed Nua for his rich and important guests.

“We don't have the time,” Aloth tells him, because he can practically see him straining to run amuck of the district.

“I know.” Caedrus sighs, sounding legitimately sorrowful.

Up ahead, the towering visage of Arkamyr's Manor dominates the northwestern sky, purple sorcery flames dancing against its charred black sonor stone. Aloth sneers at it and wonders, not for the first time, why every legendary wizard had to have such a penchant for idiosyncrasy.

_Somebody should really tell him that it doesn't look grand or opulent or intimidating, or whatever other thing he thinks it looks like. It looks ridiculous, sitting in a beautiful artisan district like this._

He shakes his head, and they pass it by. They take the road out of Periki's Overlook and up once more. The houses fall away around them until its just them and the road and the palace sprawling above.

Caedrus pauses only once, with hands on his hips and breathing heavily from the climb, he looks up at the palace for a long moment, then shakes his head and presses forward, looking all the world like a man going towards a noose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want you guys to know that the fact that a little space gets added before and after the italicized words really pisses me off, but I refuse to do anything about it out of a sort of personal rebellion.


	9. Ridicule

_ n. to make fun of _

* * *

 

“Hold a moment,” the palace guard orders in a strangely subdued and tired voice. There is only the one of them stationed outside the palace doors. The Huana are strange and trusting like that. 

Caedrus pauses and looks at the guard, tilting his chin up in a challenging manner even though the guard has nearly four feet on him. 

“You may visit the palace and its shrine,” the guard continues, “but be warned: the Queen meets with Trading Company vipers. Take care that you are not bitten.”

“A strange way to speak about your allies,” Caedrus responds in a way that suggests he’s sneering, though Aloth cannot see his face. 

The guard shrugs, unbothered. “Mere words.”

“Yes, indeed. And I’ll keep them in  _ mind _ .”

The guard narrows his eyes at him, but steps aside to let them through. He jabs his spear against the ginormous doors of the palace, the sound booming. “If you get lost, just follow the shouting.”

Caedrus grunts and crosses his arms over his chest while the doors slowly start to yawn open to admit them. Aloth stares at him while they wait, slightly hunched back as he stands there, almost slumping on the spot like a sulky adolescent. Pitiful. 

The doors finally open wide enough to admit them, and they enter the palace. There isn't all that much shouting, Aloth notes, but the mood inside the doors is tense and hushed. There is a magnificent display just inside the foyer, of a school of fish made out of thin, silvery metal circling a ball of light. It casts calming blue light across them like a welcome, and to Aloth's surprise, the contraption swirls into a faster rhythm when Caedrus passes it, the fake fish thrown into an excited tizzy as though they are alive.

Caedrus marches straight ahead and into the throne room, shoulders thrown back and head held high as if he has every single right to be there. There is a sizable crowd of all species and walks of life hugging the walls and peering out from behind pillars draped with cloth. The sound of heated arguing persists ahead, and the crowd around the edges of the room seem to be paying avid attention to every shift of tone and mood of whoever is making all the racket. 

Before the dais of the throne there is a small half-circle of people, about six in total, and it is from them that all the arguing seems to be stemming from. They stand a good distance in front and apart from the main crowd, and Caedrus walks so closely up to them that Aloth wonders for half a second if he is simply going to just barge right into the middle of it all, but he stops short a few feet behind them.

Aloth feels the unpleasant sensation of several curious eyes upon his back, and he realizes that Caedrus has pushed them out to a place of prominence and away from the main crowd, too; situating the five of them as though they were standing in a queue for an audience with the queen.

To distract himself, Aloth tries to tune in to the argument happening in front of him, if only for a little bit of context. Something about the destruction of some settlement or outpost, and whose fault, of the two parties present, it is. 

Gods, everyone is so afraid these days. He feels it keenly, suddenly; it washes over him in waves and takes his breath for a few seconds. The fear in the throne room is stifling: these people have come here for reassurances and answers from the closest position of power that they have access to because they don't know what's going on.

So afraid, and so unbeknownst to the actuality of it all. An actuality that is much more frightening than anything. The reality of it slams into him for the first time, making him shudder from head to toe, making him practically gasp for air at the vastness of it all— 

And then the queen takes notice of Caedrus.

“This one is a Watcher blessed by Tangaloa,” she announces, calmly, but Aloth hears:  _ here's a scapegoat _ . He wonders how she even knows that Caedrus is a Watcher. Wouldn't it be hilarious, he thinks in rising panic and despair, if Caedrus  _ wasn't _ a Watcher blessed by Tangaloa? If he was just some random self-important noble waiting for an audience with the queen, and would have to play along with her and pretend. How funny that would be.

“I suspect that many of our questions about Hasongo will soon be answered.”

There is a bellowing silence after this announcement, and Aloth feels as though the attention of the very Gods are on them. He tries to calm himself, closing his eyes and counting backwards from ten. It helps that the fear in the room has receded a little to be replaced by cautious curiosity. He suddenly wonders if this is what Caedrus feels every second of every day, the pressure of being looked to for answers and reassurances, the expecting eyes of the Gods hovering on him from above.

Easily, gracefully, the Watcher steps forward through the half-circle of dignitaries and then forward still, until the tips of his boots touch the gold-laced staircase leading up onto the dais. The guards flanking the queen’s throne twitch a little at how close he gets.

“If it pleases the court, I've journeyed from a crippled Port Maje with a pressing warning for the queen,” Caedrus denotes, grave. His voice carries something extra in it, something powerful, a second intonation shadowing his familiar one. Aloth feels the deep, extrinsic power of the words vibrating in his chest and booming in his mind.

Like a proclamation from a God.

The queen looks at him for a short moment, and then leans forward in her throne. When she speaks, she sounds a little breathless.

“You have the ear of the throne. Speak on.”

Before Caedrus can do so, one of the previous debaters steps forward and places a hand on his chest. “Forgive me, Your Majesty, but surely you must have heard how this man's parlor tricks frightened ten years off of every sailor in Queen's Berth.” 

Aloth sneers at the man's back, his own rage surprising him.  _ Idiot.  _ Listen _ to what he has to say!  _

“Surely the problem we face is more pressing than whatever gimmicks or warnings this man has to give,” the dignitary continues. “After all, it has been several days since he has arrived, and he is just now seeing it fit to deliver this… monition.”

The queen’s mouth twitches downward and she motions for her brother, who comes to her side. They debate in whispers for several seconds. The queen's eyes never stray from Caedrus.

For his part, Caedrus says nothing, standing stock-still at the base of the dais. Aloth wonders if he feels vulnerable up there without them at his back. Some part of him wants to step forward and join him; a show of support and a shield against whatever barbs they might throw at him. The nervous energy at his side tells him Eder is of the same mind, probably even more pressingly. Aloth grips the man's forearm, partially to keep him from charging up there and partially because he really needs to grab hold of something. The bitter taste of the small panic attack still lingers in Aloth's mouth, and he knows that a larger one is lurking in wait. He feels Eder relax minutely under his touch, and then the feeling of calloused fingers wrapping around his wrist in return.

Fool, he thinks fondly,  _ I'm _ not going to be the one to break decorum like that.

The queen speaks again.

“Watcher, we have assembled here to discuss the darkening of Hasongo—one of Rauatai's colonies. A pressing, frightening matter for those present. I wonder if your omen is somehow tied to it.”

“It is, my queen.”

The ripple of that proclamation goes through the crowd. The queen holds a hand for silence, then uses that hand to gesture at Caedrus.

“Then you have the floor.”

Caedrus nods once, and turns to the crowd. His face is a composed, emotionless mask.

“I seek a giant that crosses these waters. I am beseeched by the Gods themselves, as their messenger, to find him and discover his purpose. He is Eothas, who was once thought to be dead and now lives.” He flicks his gaze to the faces of the two dignitaries. “Your ‘Hasongo’ has probably been trampled on by him, and everyone there is most likely dead. Such is the carnage that his purposeful stride leaves.”

He has to raise his voice over the clamor of the crowd, which grows louder and builds on it's own panic until the queen’s brother bellows for silence. Faintly, Aloth feels himself grip Eder's forearm so hard that his fingers ache. It takes several seconds for the crowd to calm and for quiet to be restored.

The Hazanui snorts and waves her hand through the air, gesturing at Caedrus back. “Your Majesty, please, what sailor's tale is this?” 

“There's no sane explanation for what's been happening,” Eder says loudly, and in the next second he shakes Aloth's hand off and is stepping forward towards Caedrus's side. Aloth only has time to think, shit, here we go, before he swallows his own screeching nerves and follows him. He doesn't even know why he does it, but it feels right, somehow, to bridge the distance and be at Caedrus's back alongside Eder. Like he's detaching himself away from the suffocating fear of the ‘commoners’ and is stepping into a circle of ‘people who can actually  _ do _ something about all this’.

“And if you keep waiting for one, it'll be too late,” Eder continues. “We don't know where he's going or what he has planned, but he walks again and he's killing hundreds of people.”

“Does tilling the soils of the Eastern Reach drive all men mad?” the Hazanui says with amusement. “You sound as crazy as those Dawnstar dreamers.”

A murmur spreads through the crowd, and Aloth scowls at the Hazanui until he remembers that the woman is large enough to snap him in half between her fingers.

“Have you not heard the rumors, Karū?” the other dignitary, and older, very Vailian-looking man murmurs uneasily. “An adra colossus marching across the sea. Sailors tales, perhaps, but… credible ones.” He crosses his arms over his chest, though it looks more like a self-hug than anything. Aloth's eyes stray from him and land on woman that stands at his back near one of the draped pillars. His jaw drops, but before he can alert Eder and Caedrus to her presence, she does it for him.

“Canta Nicese, I am acquainted with the Watcher of Caed Nua from my assignments in Defiance Bay and Twin Elms,” says Pallegina, stepping up to her superior’s side and gesturing minutely towards Caedrus's direction. She doesn't look at Caedrus, and Caedrus doesn't make any open indication of his surprise at her appearance. Aloth wonders if he was already aware of her.

The Canta Nicese furrows his brows. “Di verus? It explains the… colorful nature of your reports.” 

“I have seen things with him that are not even told in the most outlandish of sailors tales,” Pallegina says, stoic as ever. Aloth feels a wave of warm fondness dissipate through him. Bless her. Now they won't look like utter fools.

“And I'm supposed to take two  _ Vailians _ at their word?” the Hazanui asks. “Surely this seems just a bit too convenient, Your Majesty, that he would have a past acquaintance ready to vouch at the most opportune moment.”

The queen doesn't react in any noticeable way, except for a shift in her seating to insinuate that she has the floor once more.

“How  _ does _ a Watcher from half a world away come to be involved in these... happenings? Enlighten the court.”

“Eothas emerged from beneath Caed Nua, my castle,” Caedrus says flatly, as though he wasn't talking about the destruction of his home and his own death. 

“He made this… personal,” he adds on softly, betraying his own heart, and it hits Aloth for perhaps the first time that Caedrus had an actual  _ life _ back in the Dyrwood. A home and friends, shops and taverns he frequented where people probably knew his name and preferences. An armorer and weapons smith who did the upkeep on his gear. A florist, a barber, a tailor, a cook. Staff that he had undoubtedly been chummy with. He had probably taken great measures to build up a community around himself, and it had all been taken from him in one fell swoop.

“Tracking down a God who stands as tall as a mountain… a fisherman with poor eyesight could do that.” The Hazanui again. Aloth almost readies a spell to sew her mouth shut.

She is ignored, however. The queen strokes her own chin in bemusement. “If what you say is true, then my priests will trip over their feet to interpret his divine plan, and probably give me a lot more questions than answers.” She focuses on Caedrus again. “Watcher, can you cut through the din and tell for what he comes to the Deadfire?” 

“The Gods are no mystery to me, my queen. Eothas will answer for his actions. He is taking a path that touches the prominent adra pillars of this area—and I was told that the queen of Neketaka knows all of them. If it's my destiny to dog his heels and to make him answer for his crimes, that is how I will be finding him.” He says it calmly, solemnly, and it makes Aloth think of him saying  _ if Eothas doesn't kill me a second time _ , and  _ the day that Eothas can put me into the ground _ . Aloth wants to grab him and shake him violently. Ask her for a Godsdamned  _ fleet _ ! he shouts furiously inside his own head. Do  _ something _ , make her give you some sort of support,  _ use _ that silver tongue of yours.

Caedrus just stands there.

“Then I believe our course is clear,” the queen announces. “We will send the Watcher to Hasongo. Perhaps whatever he did there will aid you in your divine quest. Set sail west of Neketaka. I would tell you to keep a weather eye out for a lighthouse, but the God of Light did not appreciate competition.” 

“I… will go at once, my queen,” Caedrus says, probably instead of something much more rude and impatient. Even Aloth feels put upon. They come here telling her about the boogeyman, and she sends them to do her dirty work. And it  _ is  _ her dirty work, because he can tell that she doesn't fully  _ believe _ Caedrus. She's interested in the ‘divine’ implications of it, and she's humoring him, and she sees someone capable and important enough to be her errand boy. 

“Something to add, Hazanui? You have an eager look about you,” the queen says, and Aloth thinks, yes, go ahead, I dare you. 

The Hazanui inclines her chin. “Only that Hasongo is a Rauataian outpost. It would be useful for the Watcher to take one of ours along.” 

A composed island aumaua steps forward to stand rigidly at the Hazanui’s side. “Ma'am.”

“Maia’s an expert sailor, and a better sharpshooter—the best the Brass Citadel has to offer.”

Caedrus snorts very softly, Aloth only hears it because of his close position to him. He knows Caedrus must be dying to run his mouth and say quite a few choice words about this entire situation. Aloth is amazed that he has kept his tact for so long. Usually being in the presence of any type of authority nettled Caedrus into being even more smart-mouthed than usual.

“And shut us out entirely?” the Canta Nicese demands. “We have every right to know of any hazards in these waters. Pallegina, go with the Watcher. See that the Republics are served in this… investigation.”

“That will be quite enough parading of champions for now. I'm certain that our guest knows how to assemble a crew,” the queen calls, wry.

“Yes, of course,” Caedrus says sarcastically saccharine. “I'll gladly take two spies into my crew, my queen.”

Aloth winces. Oh, don't ruin it now.

The queen snorts, surprisingly. “If you can stand the chattering of unlike minds on your ship, that is your prerogative. I believe we are finished here. Aruihi?” she rises and motions to the prince.

“Indeed. I believe it's beyond time our guests lick their wounds elsewhere,” the prince growls. The surrounding guards come to attention as the queen exits through a back staircase.

The crowd starts to disperse slowly, as is the standard proceedings of these sorts of things. Serafen and Xoti join them once the mood in the room relaxes. The Hazanui and Canta Nicese talk in low tones to Maia and Pallegina, respectively. Some people stare curiously at Caedrus as if he is some exotic and dangerous animal on display. Caedrus seems to be in a haze, almost, staring at some point on the wall with unfocused eyes. Aloth wonders what he thinks about.

But at least now they have a direction, even if nothing turned out the way Aloth would have preferred. It's hard not to get impatient with the political games of mortals when Gods walk the earth. 

When looking at it in an objective manner, he can hardly blame the skepticism. The tale does sound crazy, and one can hardly expect any type of major support on such outlandish-sounding claims. The little bit that the queen has given them is will have to suffice—at the very least, they weren't laughed out of the palace.

“Watcher,” the prince calls, and Aloth snaps out of his reverie. “We should talk now that the court games are finished.”

Caedrus nods, brows furrowing, but he steps closer to the prince so that their voices don't carry. Eder sticks to his back like a shadow, so Aloth figures that he should too.

The prince spends a few seconds appraising Caedrus, as if he hadn't had time to do so in the last thirty minutes. Finally, he nods and crosses his arms across his chest with a self-satisfied smile, as if whatever he has seen in Caedrus has pleased him.

“Your coming is a favorable omen already,” he decides.

Caedrus chuckles. It doesn't have life in it. “You don't need to tell  _ me _ that.”

The prince laughs boisterously. “Ekera.  _ This _ is the confidence my people need!” He scans his gaze over their heads, smiling in a sharp manner. “You happen by at a time when our rivals bicker and tear at each other's throats. It does not take a priest to see how the gods send us an outsider to dig under the skin of our enemies.” He smiles at Caedrus in a slightly proud way, as if he is some worthy prize.

“It  _ does _ seem I came at a bad time,” Caedrus says dryly.

“No, I say. The envoy of a god will humble our foreign… allies.” He sneers a little, over their heads again. Aloth realizes that he's doing it towards the direction of the Hazanui and Canta Nicese.

Ah, Aloth thinks. Someone else who wants to use Caedrus for their own gains. It wasn't hard to gauge that the aumaua royalty and the trading companies had tensions between them. And while Caedrus was not the type to get involved in big conflicts, that did not mean that any of the three wouldn't try to involve him anyway.

“I will not paddle around the issue—my sister wants to know if you are as  _ useful _ as you are disruptive, and she trusts me to judge this.”

“Then why has she already put me up to a task?” Caedrus challenges. 

He waves it away. “A high-visibility mission. She had to do something with you after you made such a grand entrance, and such a pretty speech.” He looks Caedrus up and down. “You did not come this far to serve the crown, I say, but sailing is an expensive hobby. Loyal service can keep your galley stocked.”

“What kind of loyal service?” Caedrus asks. Aloth wonders why he bothers to if he's just going to say yes.

“My sister keeps a tight grip on Neketaka, but the filth of it drips down her palm and into the Gullet.”

Sounds… ominous, this ‘Gullet’.

“Under our noses, I say, do foreigners snuggle contraband and pay the Roparu for their silence.”

“Always good money in smuggling,” Caedrus agrees. 

The prince pulls out a silver medallion and hovers it in front of Caedrus's face. 

“An envoy's ship was sunk a day's voyage out of Neketaka. He wore this on his breast.” He drops it from his hand and Caedrus snatches it out of the air easily, looking down at it with interest. “My guards recovered it in a raid of the Gullet. Somehow, it had made it back home. It confirms my longstanding suspicion: Neketaka has a pirate problem.” He curls his lips up in distaste. “Smugglers and thieves cluster like rats in Delver's Row—a growth in the bowels of our city.”

Serafen mutters something under his breath that Aloth is too disgusted by the current imagery to hear. The prince does like his odd similies, doesn't he? He feels extra presence at his back and turns to smile at Pallegina when she lays a hand on his shoulder in greeting. The other woman, Maia, stands a respectable distance back from them, but watches their group with a carefully blank face. Aloth wonders if she is already spying.

“Anyone who preys on my people will know Onekaza's justice in time, I say,” the prince continues. “I want someone to peddle the medallion to the black market, earn the trust of these pirates, and learn how supplies come into my city.”

“To what end?” Caedrus asks slowly.

“That will depend on what you find, I say.” He looks down, deep in thought for a moment, and then shakes himself free of it. “Onekaza leaves this for me to handle. While she worries about the manor, I tidy up the basement.” He spreads his hands, as if to say  _ that is the way it is _ . “And it is this task that will decide your future usefulness to the crown, and the heaviness of your coffers.”

“You're hiding something,” Caedrus says neutrally, as if simply stating a fact. He does pocket the medallion, however.

The prince blinks at him, and then chuckles. “I say, nothing gets past you. Is there any question why I want you for the job?”

Caedrus shrugs. “Not really. I  _ am _ quite capable.” 

His arrogance earns him nothing more than another chuckle from the prince. “Indeed. If we dealt only in pirates, then I would put a trusted agent in rags and send him down hiding in a food wagon.” He frowns and strokes his chin. “But I have reason to believe our problems go deeper than we know, and as such I want an expert.” He looks Caedrus up and down again. “And though you dress in the plumage of a nobleman, I see the streetscapes’ mark on you—the type of bearing that is never truly forgotten. You'll fit in quite well, I say.”

Caedrus doesn't respond for a moment. Aloth wonders if he is stewing in shock or offense about practically being called a shifty fellow right to his face. 

“Well, so long as the job pays, I suppose,” Caedrus finally says with a little sigh.

The prince hums. “And one more thing, Watcher. When you travel back down the mountain, seek Tekēhu in Periki's Overlook. He is a godlike—one who my people look to for hope.” The prince thumbs his chin and smiles. “He knows of our troubles.”

“Won't a godlike draw unnecessary attention? Especially a celebrity one?”

“Yes, but it is the sort of attention that will open more doors than it closes, I say.” 

“Uhuh,” Caedrus says dubiously. 

“At the very least, it won't hurt to have a local guide.” The prince smiles. “And I believe there are things you could teach him.” He sobers again, frowning over their heads. “Be on your guard in the Gullet. I fear the caverns run deeper than even Ngati could guess.”

Caedrus snorts. “Right. ‘Cause that's not ominous at all,” he mutters. 

The prince merely smiles and dismisses him with a jerk of his chin.

* * *

 

“Right then,” Caedrus announces as soon as they are free of the palace. He spins around to them and runs both hands down his face with a long exhale. “I could use a drink. Could you all use a drink? Let's go get a drink.”

“Ah, cap, you always know just what to say,” Serafen croons.

“That whole thing in there…” Caedrus trails off and then lets out a growl. “I  _ hate _ politics. I knew it was gonna be a bad idea as soon as the queen started talking into my head.”

“There, there,” Eder says, patting the Watcher on the shoulder mockingly. “Just let it all out, we're here for you.”

“It just—”

“We got the information we wanted,” Aloth says readily, not in the mood to hear Caedrus complain.

Caedrus clicks his tongue. “I  _ guess _ .” He slumps as he walks, again playing the part of a sulky adolescent. Something gross and fond jolts through Aloth's insides, just for a second, and washes away the lingering petulance. He grunts under his breath and elbows Caedrus, just sort of nudges him lightly in the side, and then Eder throws his arms around both of their shoulders, and it's all alright again.

“It could have gone better,” Aloth admits begrudgingly after a moment. “But we're viable strangers here, and you're as much of a boogeyman as Eothas is.”

Caedrus snorts. “Tell me about it. See, if Eothas was ravaging the Dyrwoodan countryside I would've had no problem rising a freaking army to go after him.”

Eder laughs. “We'd call you the second Waidwen.”

“The anti-Waidwen, thank you very much,” Caedrus corrects snootily, and then mimes raising a sword into the air. “Death to the lightbringer! Hark, we do not need him to have a sun!”

“You're an idiot,” Aloth murmurs and nudges him again. 

They seek out and settle into a seedy little tavern in Periki's Overlook. Over tankards of cold ale, with his little journal open, Caedrus hums and says to them, “So should we stay for a few days and figure out this Gullet business the prince wants us to look into, or go on ahead to Hasongo? If we go out we gotta swing by and pay our good friend Benweth a long-overdue visit. I've got some  _ surprises _ for him.”

He and Serafen grin at each other for a second in a way that makes Aloth worry about what kinds of things those two have been planning in their off hours.

“I vote on setting sail,” Aloth says. “Hasongo was the last place Eothas stopped, it would seem. There's probably another pillar there.”

“There is.” Surprisingly, it is Maia who confirms this. They all take a moment to stare at her awkwardly. She's volunteered no words so far, just trailing them silently from the palace. Aloth thinks that Caedrus might be giving her a bit of a cold shoulder since she's an admitted, blatant spy. He hadn't even properly introduced himself to her yet.

Pallegina has been similarly quiet—but Pallegina, of course, needed no introduction, and fell into step with them as though no time at all had passed.

“Another pillar,” Caedrus mutters. “Oh  _ goody _ .”

“I second the vote on settin’ sail,” Serafen says, and then belches. “Wouldn't want the men turnin’ into landlubbers.”

“Of course,” Caedrus agrees with humor.

“I'm good with whatever,” says Eder. 

“Uhuh, yeah right,” Caedrus says. “You practically dragged me kicking and screaming to the palace.”

“Well, then, you know my answer already, brother.”

Caedrus sighs a little, softening. “Yes, I suppose I do.” He glances at Pallegina and Maia in turn and says, “I think I can guess as to both of your votes—tsk, I guess we're sailing to  _ Hasongo _ , then.”

He doesn't look entirely pleased about it, but shuts his journal and raises his tankard into the air. It is joined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry bout the wait. I r e a l l y got into JoJo's Bizarre Adventure lately and it's been taking over my life. 
> 
> (How about that turn-based combat mode, tho?)


End file.
